Encyclopedia of SociologyVol._1

others are actively concerned with both work and family spheres. Such divergence in future orientations and planning influences the intensity of striving for achievement and attainment during the transition to adulthood.

Moreover, to the extent that young women are aware of the difficulties adult women face, resulting from employer discrimination and the unequal division of family work, this would likely depress expectations for labor market success. Ambivalence about work could exacerbate the detrimental consequences of other psychological differences (relative to males) for socioeconomic attainment, such as lower self-efficacy, lower selfesteem, and higher levels of depressive affect (Simmons and Blyth 1987; Gecas 1989; Finch et al. 1991; Shanahan et al. 1991; Mortimer 1994). It is therefore not surprising that although women have narrowed the historical gap in educational attainment (McLaughlin et al. 1988), they often get ‘‘diverted’’ from their initial plans, emphasizing romance over academics (Holland and Eisenhart 1990). For today’s women, taking on adult work and family roles is more likely than for men to result in the termination of schooling (Pallas 1993).

If the family is an important institutional context for the acquisition of economic and other resources for the adult transition, family poverty or disintegration may be expected to have negative consequences. Experiences in youth may thus set in motion a train of events that have a profound impact on the early life course. Disruption and single parenthood in the family of origin, and the economic loss and emotional turmoil that frequently ensue, may jeopardize parental investment in children and youth. However, Coleman (1994) argues that declining investments in the next generation may occur even in more favorable and affluent circumstances. As the functions of the family are transferred to other agencies in welfare states (e.g., as the government takes over education, welfare, support of the aged, and other functions), there is a declining economic dependence of family members on one another. As the multigenerational organization and functions of the family weaken, parental motivation to invest attention, time, and effort in the younger generation may also decrease throughout the population.

However, Shanahan (forthcoming) speaks of

‘‘knifing off’’ experiences during the transition

to adulthood, which can enable some youth to escape from poverty, familial conflict, stigmatization, and other debilitating circumstances of their childhood and teen years. For example, service in the military enabled many men from disadvantaged backgrounds to extricate themselves from the stressful circumstances of their families, mature psychologically, and therefore be in a better position to take advantage of educational benefits for veterans after World War II (Elder and Caspi 1990).

The availability of opportunities for anticipatory socialization or practice of adult roles may also affect adaptation to them. Contemporary youth spend much of their time in schools, cut off from meaningful contact with adult workers (excepting their teachers). Some have expressed concern that this isolation from adult work settings reduces opportunities for career exploration and encourages identification with the youth subculture (Panel on Youth 1974). Many parents encourage adolescent children to work, believing that this experience will help them to become responsible and independent, to learn to handle money, and to effectively manage their time (Phillips and Sandstrom 1990). However, ‘‘youth jobs’’ are quite different from adult work, involving relatively simple tasks and little expectation of continuity.

The impacts of part-time employment during adolescence for the transition to adulthood is the subject of much controversy (Committee on the

Health and Safety Implications of Child Labor 1998, ch. 4). While the full impact of employment in adolescence is not known, there is evidence that increasing investment in paid work (as indicated by the number of hours spent working per week) is associated with reduced educational attainment (Marsh 1991; Chaplin and Hannaway 1996; Carr et al. 1996). However, several studies have shown that employment during high school also predicts more stable work histories and higher earnings in the years immediately following (Mortimer and

Finch 1986; Marsh 1991; Ruhm 1995, 1997; Mortimer and Johnson 1998). Stern and Nakata (1989), using data from noncollege youth in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, report that more complex work activity in adolescence is associated with lower incidence of unemployment and higher earnings three years after high school.

The meaning of adolescent work also influences subsequent educational and occupational

outcomes. For example, employment has been found to have a positive effect on high school students’ grades when the workers are saving their earnings to go to college (Marsh 1991; Ruscoe et al. 1996). Consistently, youth who effectively balance their part-time jobs with school, working near continuously during high school but restricting the intensity of their employment to twenty hours a week or fewer, were found to have high earlyachievement orientations and obtained more months of post-secondary education (Mortimer and Johnson 1998).

There is further evidence that the quality of adolescent work experience matters for psychological outcomes that are likely to influence adult attainment (Mortimer and Finch 1996). For example, adolescent boys who felt that they were obtaining useful skills and who perceived opportunities for advancement in their jobs exhibited increased mastery (internal control) over time; girls who thought that they were being paid well for their work manifested increasing levels of self-efficacy (Finch et al. 1991). Exposure to job stressors, in contrast, heightened depressive affect (Shanahan et al. 1991).

For the most disadvantaged segments of society there is concern that poor educational opportunities and a rapidly deteriorating economic base in the inner cities preclude access to youth jobs as well as to viable adult work roles (Wilson 1987), irrespective of personal efficacy, ambition, or other traits. The shift from an industrialto a servicebased economy has lessened the availability of entry-level employment in manufacturing. Economic and technological change has created a class of ‘‘hard-core unemployed’’; those whose limited education and skills place them at a severe disadvantage in the labor market (Lichter 1988; Halperin 1998). Black males’ lack of stable employment in U.S. inner cities limits their ability to assume the adult family role (as male provider) and fosters the increasing prevalence and legitimacy of female-headed families.

Research on African-American adolescents suggests that the transition to adulthood may differ significantly from that of non-minority teens. Ogbu (1989) implicates beliefs about success as critical to understanding the paradox of high aspirations among black adolescents and low subsequent

achievement. The ‘‘folk culture of success,’’ fostered by a history of discrimination and reinforced by everyday experience (e.g., the observation of black career ceilings, inflated job qualifications, housing discrimination, and poor occupational achievement despite success in school), convinces some young blacks that desired occupational outcomes will not be assured by educational attainment. Given the belief that external forces controlled by whites determine success, alternative strategies for achievement may be endorsed— hustling, collective action, or dependency on a more powerful white person. These, in turn, may diminish the effort in school that is necessary to obtain good grades and educational credentials.

In the context of urban poverty and violence, youth expectations for a truncated life expectancy

(an ‘‘accelerated life course’’), may lessen the salience of adolescence as a distinct life stage

(Burton et al. 1996). With few employment and educational opportunities available, these youth often focus on alternative positive markers of adulthood, such as becoming a parent, obtaining material goods, or becoming involved in religious activities. Under such conditions, even a menial job can engender and reinforce ‘‘mainstream’’ identities and ‘‘possible selves’’ as economically productive working adults (Newman 1996). However, structural opportunities pervasively influence achievement orientations and outcomes throughout the social class hierarchy; such processes are clearly not limited to any particular societal stratum

(Kerckhoff 1995).

Supportive families and other social bonds are predictive of successful adjustment in the face of poverty and other disadvantages (Ensminger and Juon 1998). Families who are successful in these circumstances place great emphasis on connecting their adolescent children with persons and agencies outside the immediate household, in their neighborhoods and beyond, thereby enhancing their social networks and social capital, invaluable resources in the transition to adulthood (Furstenberg et al. 1999; Sullivan 1989).

In summary, becoming an adult involves changes in objective status positions and in subjective orientations. The transition to adulthood has changed through historical time as a result of economic, political, and social trends. Contemporary young people face increasingly extended and

individualized paths in the timing and sequencing of their movement into adult roles. The transition to adulthood is found to be a critical period for the crystallization of key orientations and values. Adult status placement and adjustment are influenced by socioeconomic background and poverty, gender, early employment experiences, and psychological resources.

The multiplicity of transition markers, the variety of macrostructural and personal influences, and the little-studied subjective component give rise to important challenges and complexities in the study of this phase of life.

REFERENCES

Alwin, Duane F., Ronald L. Cohen, and Theodore M. Newcomb 1991 Political Attitudes over the Life Span: The Bennington Women after Fifty Years. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Ari@eacute;s, Philippe 1962 Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York: Vintage.

Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen 1997 ‘‘Young People’s Conceptions of the Transition to Adulthood.’’ Youth and Society 29:3–23.

———, and Susan Taber 1994 ‘‘Adolescence Terminable and Interminable: When Does Adolescence End?’’

Journal of Youth and Adolescence 23:5, 517–537.

Aronson, Pamela 1999a ‘‘The Balancing Act: Young Women’s Expectations and Experiences of Work and Family.’’ In Toby Parcel, ed., Research in the Sociology of Work. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press.

———1999b Blurring life course stages: Young women’s transition from adolescence to adulthood in the contemporary era. Paper under review.

———1998 ‘‘Coming of age in the 1990s: Women’s identities, life paths, and attitudes towards feminism.’’ Ph.D. diss., Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.

———Forthcoming ‘‘The Development and Transformation of Feminist Identities under Changing Historical Conditions.’’ In Timonthy J. Owens, ed., Advances in Life Course Research: Identity across the Life Course in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press.

Arum, Richard, and Michael Hout 1998 ‘‘The Early Returns: The Transition from School to Work in the United States.’’ In Yossi Shavit and Walter Muller, eds., From School to Work: A Comparative Study of Educational Qualifications and Occupational Destinations. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bachman, Jerald G., and John Schulenberg 1993 ‘‘How Part-time Work Intensity Relates to Drug Use, Problem Behavior, Time Use, and Satisfaction among High School Seniors: Are These Consequences or Merely Correlates?’’ Developmental Pyschology 29:220–235.

Backman, Carl W. 1981 ‘‘Attraction in Interpersonal Relationships.’’ In M. Rosenberg and R. H. Turner, eds., Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives. New York: Basic Books.

Baltes, Paul B., Hayne W. Reese, and Lewis P. Lipsitt 1980 ‘‘Life-Span Developmental Psychology.’’ Annual Review of Psychology 31:65–110.

Bandura, Albert 1996 Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W. H. Freeman.

Blau, Peter M., and Otis Dudley Duncan 1967 The American Occupational Structure. New York: Wiley.

Borman, Kathryn M. 1991 The First ‘Real’ Job: A Study of Young Workers. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Brandtstadter, Jochen 1998 ‘‘Action Perspectives on Human Development.’’ In Richard M. Lerner, ed.,

Handbook of Child Psychology. Vol. 1, Theoretical Models of Human Development. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Buchmann, Marlis 1989 The Script of Life in Modern Society: Entry into Adulthood in a Changing World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Burton, Linda M., Dawn A. Obeidallah, and Kevin Allison 1996 ‘‘Ethnographic Insights on Social Context and Adolescent Development among Inner-City African-American Teens.’’ In R. Jessor, A. Colby, and R. Shweder, eds., Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Carr, R. V., J. D. Wright, and C. J. Brody 1996 ‘‘Effects of High School Work Experience a Decade Later: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey.’’ Sociology of Education 69 (January):66–81.

Chaplin, D., and J. Hannaway 1996 High school enrollment: meaningful connections for at-risk youth. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute.

Clausen, John A. 1993 American Lives: Looking Back at the Children of the Great Depression. New York: Free Press.

——— 1991 ‘‘Adolescent Competence and the Shaping of the Life Course.’’ American Journal of Sociology

96:805–842.

Cohler, Bertram J., Frances M. Stott, and Judith S. Musick 1995 ‘‘Adversity, Vulnerability, and Resilience: Cultural and Developmental Perspectives.’’ In

Dante Cicchetti and Donald J. Cohen, eds., Developmental Psychopathology. Vol. 2, Risk, Disorder, and Adaptation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Coleman, James S. 1994 ‘‘Social Capital, Human Capital, and Investment in Youth.’’ In Anne C. Petersen and Jeylan T. Mortimer, eds., Youth Unemployment and Society. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.

———, and Torsten Husen 1985 Becoming Adult in a Changing Society. Paris: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Committee on the Health and Safety Implications of Child Labor, National Research Council 1998 Protecting Youth at Work: Health, Safety, and Development of Working Children and Adolescents in the United States. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Connor, John W., and George A. De Vos 1989 ‘‘Cultural Influences on Achievement Motivation and Orientation toward Work in Japanese and American Youth.’’ In D. Stern and D. Eichorn, eds., Adolescence and Work: Influences of Social Structure, Labor Markers, and Culture. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Cooney, Teresa M. 1994 ‘‘Leaving Home and Coming Back: The Influence of Parental Divorce and Family Dynamics on Young Adults’ Residential Transitions.’’

Sociological Studies of Children 6:159–179.

———, and Jeylan T. Mortimer Forthcoming ‘‘Family Structure Differences in the Timing of Leaving Home: Exploring Mediating Factors.’’ Journal of Research on Adolescence.

Cöté, James E., and Anton L. Allahar 1994 Generation on Hold: Coming of Age in the Late Twentieth Century. New York: New York University Press.

Dornbusch, Sanford M. 1994 Off the track. Presidential address at the meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, 10–13 February, at San Diego, Calif.

Elder, Glen H., Jr. 1974 Children of the Great Depression. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

———, and Avshalom Caspi 1990 ‘‘Studying Lives in a Changing Society: Sociological and Personological Explorations.’’ In A. I. Rabin, R. A. Zucker, and S. Frank, eds., Studying Persons and Lives. New York: Springer-Verlag.

——— 1988 ‘‘Human Development and Social Change: An Emerging Perspective on the Life Course.’’ In N. Bolger, A. Caspi, G. Downey, and M. Moorehouse, eds., Persons in Context: Developmental Processes. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Elder, Glen H., Jr., J. K. Liker, and C. E. Cross 1984 ‘‘Parent-Child Behavior in the Great Depression:

Life Course and Intergenerational Influences.’’ In P. B. Baltes, ed., Life-Span Development and Behavior. New York: Academic Press.

Elder, Glen H., Jr., and Angela M. O’Rand 1995 ‘‘Adult Lives in a Changing Society.’’ In K. S. Cook, G. A. Fine and J. S. House, eds., Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology. New York: Allyn and Bacon.

Ensminger, Margaret E., and Hee Soon Juon 1998 ‘‘Transition to Adulthood among High-Risk Youth.’’ In Richard Jessor, ed., New Perspectives on Adolescent Risk Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Featherman, David L. 1980 ‘‘Schooling and Occupational Careers: Constancy and Change in Worldly Success.’’ In O. G. Brim, Jr. and J. Kagan, eds.,

Constancy and Change in Human Development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

———, and Kenneth I. Spenner 1988 ‘‘Class and the Socialization of Children: Constancy, Change, or Irrelevance?’’ In E. Mavis Hetherington, R. M. Lerner, and M. Perlmutter, eds., Child Development in Perspective. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Feldman, Kenneth A., and John Weiler 1976 ‘‘Changes in Initial Differences among Major-Field Groups: An Exploration of the ‘Accentuation Effect.’’’ In W. H. Sewell, R. M. Hauser, and D. L. Featherman, eds.,

Schooling and Achievement in American Society. New York: Academic Press.

Festinger, Leon 1957 A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Finch, Michael D., Michael J. Shanahan, Jeylan T. Mortimer, and Seongryeol Ryu 1991 ‘‘Work Experience and Control Orientation in Adolescence.’’ American Sociological Review 56 (October):597–611.

Foner, Anne, and David Kertzer 1978 ‘‘Transitions over the Life Course: Lessons from Age-Set Societies.’’

American Journal of Sociology 83:1081–1104.

Furstenberg, Frank F., Jr., J. Brooks-Gunn, and S. Philip Morgan 1987 Adolescent Mothers in Later Life. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.

Furstenberg, Frank F., Jr., and Thomas D. Cook, Jacquelynne Eccles, Glen H. Elder, Jr., and Arnold Sameroff 1999 Managing to Make It: Urban Families and Adolescent Success. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Galambos, Nancy L., and Marion F. Ehrenberg 1997 ‘‘The Family as Health Risk and Opportunity: A Focus on Divorce and Working Families.’’ In John Schulenberg, Jennifer L. Maggs, and Klaus Hurrelmann, eds., Health Risks and Developmental Transitions during Adolescence. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.

Gamoran, Adam 1996 ‘‘Educational Stratification and Individual Careers.’’ In Alan C. Kerckhoff, ed., Generating Social Stratification: Toward a New Research Agenda. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Gecas, Viktor 1989 ‘‘The Social Psychology of SelfEfficacy.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 15:291–316.

——— 1979 ‘‘The Influence of Social Class on Socialization.’’ In W. R. Burr, R. Hill, F. I. Nye, and I. L. Reiss, eds., Contemporary Theories about the Family. Vol. 1, Research-Based Theories. New York: Free Press.

Geissler, B., and Helga Kruger 1992 ‘‘Balancing the Life Course in Response to Institutional Arrangements.’’ In Walter Heinz, ed., Institutions and Gatekeeping in the Life Course. Weinheim, Germany: Deutscher Studien Verlag.

Glenn, Norval D. 1980 ‘‘Values, Attitudes, and Beliefs.’’ In O. G. Brim, Jr. and J. Kagan, eds., Constancy and Change in Human Development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Goldscheider, Frances K., and Calvin Goldscheider 1993

Leaving Home Before Marriage: Ethnicity, Familism, and Generational Relationships. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Gore, Susan, Robert Aseltine, Jr., Mary Ellen Colten, and Bin Lin 1997 ‘‘Life after High School: Development, Stress, and Well-Being.’’ In Ian H. Gotlib and Blair Wheaton, eds., Stress and Adversity over the Life Course: Trajectories and Turning Points. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.

Grabowski, Lorie Schabo, Kathleen T. Call. and Jeylan T. Mortimer 1998 Global and economic self-efficacy in the attainment process. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August, San Francisco, Calif.

Graff, Harvey 1995 Conflicting Paths: Growing Up in America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Granovetter, Mark S. 1974 Getting a Job. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Greenberger, Ellen, and A. B. Sorenson 1974 ‘‘Toward a Concept of Psychosocial Maturity.’’ Journal of Youth and Adolescence 3:329–358.

Greenberger, Ellen, and Laurence Steinberg 1986 When Teenagers Work. New York: Basic Books.

Greene, A. L. 1990 ‘‘Great Expectations: Constructions of the Life Course During Adolescence.’’ Journal of Youth and Adolescence 19:289–306.

Hagestad, Gunhild 1992 ‘‘Assigning Rights and Duties: Age, Duration, and Gender in Social Institutions.’’ In Walter Heinz, ed., Institutions and Gatekeeping in the Life Course. Weinheim, Germany: Deutscher Studien Verlag.

Hall, G. S. 1904 Adolescence: Its Psychology and its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education. New York: Appleton.

Halperin, Samuel (ed.) 1998 The Forgotten Half Revisited: American Youth and Young Families, 1988–2008. Washington, D.C.: American Youth Policy Forum, Inc.

Hamilton, Stephen F. 1990 Apprenticeship for Adulthood. Preparing Youth for the Future. New York: Free Press.

Hogan, Dennis P., and Nan Marie Astone 1986 ‘‘The Transition to Adulthood.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 12:109–130.

Hogan, Dennis P., and Takashi Mochizuki 1988 ‘‘Demographic Transitions and the Life Course: Lessons from Japanese and American Comparisons.’’ Journal of Family History 13:291–305.

Holland, Dorothy, and Margaret Eisenhart 1990 Educated in Romance: Women, Achievement, and College Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Inglehart, R. 1990 Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Jessor, Richard, and Shirley L. Jessor 1977 Problem Behavior and Psychosocial Development. A Longitudinal Study of Youth. New York: Academic Press.

Jordaan, Jean Pierre, and Donald E. Super 1974 ‘‘The Prediction of Early Adult Vocational Behavior.’’ In D. F. Ricks, A. Thomas, and M. Roff, eds., Life History Research in Psychopathology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Keniston, Kenneth 1970 ‘‘Youth as a Stage of Life.’’

American Scholar 39:631–654.

Kerckhoff, Alan C. 1996 ‘‘Building Conceptual and Empirical Bridges between Studies of Educational and Labor Force Careers.’’ In A. C. Kerckhoff, ed.,

Generating Social Stratification: Toward a New Research Agenda. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

———1995 ‘‘Social Stratification and Mobility Processes: Interaction between Individuals and Social Structures.’’ In Karen S. Cook, Gary Alan Fine, and James S. House, eds., Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

———1993 Diverging Pathways. Social Structure and Career Deflections. New York: Cambridge University Press.

———and Lorraine Bell 1998 ‘‘Hidden Capital: Vocational Credentials and Attainment in the United States.’’ Sociology of Education 71:152–174.

Klein, Hugh 1990 ‘‘Adolescence, Youth and Young Adulthood: Rethinking Current Conceptualizations of Life Stage.’’ Youth and Society 21:446–471.

Kohn, Melvin L., and Carmi Schooler 1983 Work and Personality: An Inquiry into the Impact of Social Stratification. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing.

Kohn, Melvin L., Kazimierz M. Slomczynski, and Carrie Schoenbach 1986 ‘‘Social Stratification and the Transmission of Values in the Family: A Cross-National Assessment.’’ Sociological Forum 1:73–102.

Lerner, Richard M., and N. A. Busch-Rossnagel (eds.) 1981 Individuals as Producers of Their Development: A Life-Span Perspective. New York: Academic Press.

Lichter, Daniel T. 1988 ‘‘Racial Differences in Underemployment in American Cities’’ American Journal of Sociology 93:771–792.

Lin, Nan 1992 ‘‘Social Resources Theory.’’ In Edgar F. Borgatta and Marie L. Borgatta, eds., Encyclopedia of Sociology. New York: Macmillan.

Lorence, Jon, and Jeylan T. Mortimer 1985 ‘‘Job Involvement through the Life Course: A Panel Study of Three Age Groups.’’ American Sociological Review

50:618–638.

McLanahan, Sara, and Gary Sandefur 1994 Growing up with a Single Parent. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

McLaughlin, Steven D., Barbara D. Melber, John O. G. Billy, Denise M. Zimmerle, Linda D. Winges, and Terry R. Johnson 1988 The Changing Lives of American Women. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Machung, Anne 1989 ‘‘Talking Career, Thinking Job: Gender Differences in Career and Family Expectations of Berkeley Seniors.’’ Feminist Studies 15:35–39.

Maggs, Jennifer L. 1997 ‘‘Alcohol Use and Binge Drinking as Goal-Directed Action during the Transition to Postsecondary Education.’’ In John Schulenberg, Jennifer L. Maggs, and Klaus Hurrelmann, eds., Health Risks and Developmental Transitions during Adolescence. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.

Mainquist, Sheri, and Dorothy Eichorn 1989 ‘‘Competence in Work Settings.’’ In D. Stern and D. Eichorn, eds., Adolescence and Work: Influences of Social Structure, Labor Markets, and Culture. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Mannheim, Karl 1952 ‘‘The Problem of Generations.’’ In P. Kecskemeti, ed., Essays in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Marini, Margaret Mooney 1984 ‘‘Age and Sequencing Norms in the Transition to Adulthood.’’ Social Forces 63:229–244.

Marsh, H. W. 1991 ‘‘Employment during High School: Character Building or Subversion of Academic Goals?’’

Sociology of Education 64:172–189.

Meijers, Frans 1992 ‘‘’Being Young’ in the Life Perceptions of Dutch, Moroccan, Turkish and Surinam Youngsters.’’ In Wim Meeus, Martijn de Goede, Willem Kox, and Klaus Hurrelmann, eds., Adolescence, Careers, and Cultures. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Menaghan, Elizabeth G. 1997 ‘‘Intergenerational Consequences of Social Stressors: Effects of Occupational and Family Conditions on Young Mothers and Their Children.’’ In Ian Gotlib and Blair Wheaton, eds., Stress and Adversity over the Life Course: Trajectories and Turning Points. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.

Modell, John 1989 Into One’s Own. From Youth to Adulthood in the United States, 1920–1975. Berkeley: University of California Press.

——— 1980 ‘‘Normative Aspects of American Marriage Timing since World War II.’’ Journal of Family History 5:210–234.

———, Frank Furstenberg, and Theodore Hershberg 1976 ‘‘Social Change and Transitions to Adulthood in Historical Perspective.’’ Journal of Family History 1:7–32.

Moen, Phyllis 1992 Women’s Two Roles: A Contemporary Dilemma. Westport, Conn.: Auburn House.

Morris, Martina, and Annette Bernhardt 1998 The transition to work in the post-industrial labor market. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August, San Francisco, Calif.

Mortimer, Jeylan T. 1996 ‘‘Social Psychological Aspects of Achievement.’’ In Alan C. Kerckhoff, ed., Generational Social Stratification: Toward a New Generation of Research. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.

——— 1994 ‘‘Individual Differences as Precursors of Youth Unemployment.’’ In Anne C. Petersen and Jeylan T. Mortimer, eds., Youth Unemployment and Society. New York: Cambridge University Press.

———, Carolyn Harley, and Pamela J. Aronson 1999 ‘‘How do Prior Experiences in the Workplace Set the Stage for Transitions to Adulthood?’’ In Alan Booth and Nan Crouter, eds., Transitions to Adulthood in a Changing Economy: No Work, No Family, No Future?

New York: Greenwood Press.

Mortimer, Jeylan T., and Michael D. Finch 1986 ‘‘The Effects of Part-time Work on Self-Concept and Achievement.’’ In K. Borman and J. Reisman, eds., Becoming a Worker. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing.

——— 1996 ‘‘Work, Family, and Adolescent Development.’’ In J. T. Mortimer and M. D. Finch, eds.,

Adolescents, Work and Family: An Intergenerational Developmental Analysis. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

———, and Donald S. Kumka 1982 ‘‘Persistence and Change in Development: The Multidimensional SelfConcept.’’ In P. D. Baltes and O. G. Brim, Jr., eds.,

Life-Span Development and Behavior. New York: Academic Press.

Mortimer, Jeylan T., Michael D. Finch, and Geoffrey Maruyama 1988 ‘‘Work Experience and Job Satisfaction: Variation by Age and Gender.’’ In J. T. Mortimer and K. M. Borman, eds., Work Experience and Psychological Development through the Life Span. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Mortimer, Jeylan T. and Monica K. Johnson 1999. ‘‘Adolescent Part-Time Work and Post-Secondary Transition Pathways in the United States.’’ Walter Heinz, ed., From Education to Work: Cross National Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press.

——— 1998 ‘‘New Perspectives on Adolescent Work and the Transition to Adulthood.’’ In Richard Jessor, ed., New Perspectives on Adolescent Risk Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mortimer, Jeylan T., and Helga Kruger (Forthcoming) ‘‘Transition from School to Work in the United States and Germany: Formal Pathways Matter.’’ In M. Hallinan, ed., Handbook of the Sociology of Education. New York: Plenum Publishing Company.

Mortimer, Jeylan T., and Donald S. Kumka 1982 ‘‘A Further Examination of the ‘Occupational Linkage Hypothesis.’’’ Sociological Quarterly 23:3–16.

Mortimer, Jeylan T., Jon Lorence, and Donald S. Kumka 1986 Work, Family, and Personality: Transition to Adulthood. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing.

Mortimer, Jeylan T., Ellen Efron Pimentel, Seongryeol Ryu, Katherine Nash, and Chaimun Lee 1996 ‘‘PartTime Work and Occupational Value Formation in Adolescence.’’ Social Forces 74:1405–1418.

Moss, Howard A., and Elizabeth J. Susman 1980 ‘‘Longitudinal Study of Personality Development.’’ In O. G. Brim, Jr., and J. Kagan, eds., Constancy and Change in Human Development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Neugarten, Bernice L., and Nancy Datan 1973 ‘‘Sociological Perspectives on the Life Cycle.’’ In P. B. Baltes and K. Warner Schaie, eds., Life Span Developmental Psychology: Personality and Socialization. New York: Academic Press.

Neugarten, Bernice L., Joan W. Moore, and John C. Lowe 1965 ‘‘Age Norms, Age Constraints, and Adult Socialization.’’ American Journal of Sociology 70:710–717.

Newman, Katherine 1996 ‘‘Working Poor: Low Wage Employment in the Lives of Harlem Youth.’’ In J.

Graber, J. Brooks-Gunn, and A. Petersen, eds., Transitions through Adolescence: Interpersonal Domains and Context. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum Associates.

Ogbu, John U. 1989 ‘‘Cultural Boundaries and Minority Youth Orientation toward Work Preparation.’’ In D. Stern and D. Eichorn, eds., Adolescence and Work: Influences of Social Structure, Labor Markets, and Culture. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Osterman, Paul 1989 ‘‘The Job Market for Adolescents.’’ In D. Stern and D. Eichorn, eds., Adolescence and Work: Influences of Social Structure, Labor Markets, and Culture. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

——— 1980 Getting Started: The Youth Labor Market. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Pallas, Aaron 1993 ‘‘Schooling in the Course of Human Lives: Social Context of Education and Transition to Adulthood in Industrial Society.’’ Review of Educational Research 63, 4, Winter: 409–447.

Panel on Youth of the President’s Science Advisory Committee 1974 Youth: Transition to Adulthood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Phillips, Sarah, and Kent Sandstrom 1990 ‘‘Parental Attitudes toward ‘Youthwork’’’ Youth and Society 22:160–183.

Rindfuss, Ronald R., Elizabeth C. Cooksey, and R. L. Sutterlin 1990 Young adult occupational achievement: early expectations versus behavioral reality. Paper presented at the World Congress of Sociology, July, Madrid.

Rindfuss, Ronald R., C. Gray Swicegood, and Rachel Rosenfeld 1987 ‘‘Disorder in the Life Course: How Common and Does it Matter?’’ American Sociological Review 52:785–801.

Rosenberg, Morris 1979 Conceiving the Self. New York:

Basic Books.

Rossi, Alice S. 1980 ‘‘Life-Span Theories and Women’s Lives.’’ Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6:4–32.

Ruhm, C. J. 1997 ‘‘Is High School Employment Consumption or Investment?’’ Journal of Labor Economics 15:735–776.

——— 1995 ‘‘The Extent and Consequences of High School Employment.’’ Journal of Labor Research

16:293–303.

Ruscoe, G., J. C. Morgan, and C. Peebles 1996 ‘‘Students Who Work.’’ Adolescence 31:625–632.

Rutter, Michael, and David Quinton 1984 ‘‘Long-Term Follow-Up of Women Institutionalized in Childhood: Factors Promoting Good Functioning in Adult Life.’’

British Journal of Developmental Psychology 2:191–204.

Ryu, Seongryeol, and Jeylan T. Mortimer 1996 ‘‘The ‘Occupational Linkage Hypthesis’ applied to Occupational Value Formation in Adolescence.’’ In Jeylan T. Mortimer and Michael D. Finch, eds., Adolescents, Work, and Family: An Intergenerational Developmental Analysis. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Sampson, Robert J., and John H. Laub 1993 Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points through Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Sears, David O. 1981 ‘‘Life-Stage Effects on Attitude Change, Especially among the Elderly.’’ In B. Kiesler, J. N. Morgan, and V. Kincade Oppenheimer, eds., Aging: Social Change. New York: Academic Press.

Seligman, Martin 1988 ‘‘Boomer Blues.’’ Psychology Today (October): 50–55.

Sewell, William H., and Robert M. Hauser 1976 ‘‘Causes and Consequences of Higher Education: Models of the Status Attainment Process.’’ In W. H. Swell, R. M. Hauser, and D. L. Featherman, eds., Schooling and Achievement in American Society. New York: Academic Press.

Shanahan, Michael J. (Forthcoming) ‘‘Pathways to Adulthood in Changing Societies: Variability and Mechanisms in Life Course Perspective.’’ Annual Review of Sociology.

——— This volume ‘‘Adolescence.’’ In Edgar F. Borgatta and Marie L. Borgatta, eds., Encyclopedia of Sociology. New York: Macmillan.

———, and Glen H. Elder, Jr. 1999 History, agency and the life course. Paper presented at the Lincoln, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation.

Shanahan, Michael J., Richard A. Miech, and Glen H. Elder, Jr. 1998 ‘‘Changing Pathways to Attainment in Men’s Lives: Historical Patterns of School, Work, and Social Class.’’ Social Forces 77:231–256.

Shanahan, Michael J., Michael D. Finch, Jeylan T. Mortimer, and Seongryeol Ryu 1991 ‘‘Adolescent Work Experience and Depressive Affect.’’ Social Psychology Quarterly 54:299–317.

Shavit, Yossi, and Walter Muller 1998 From School to Work: A Comparative Study of Educational Qualifications and Occupational Destinations. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Simmons, Roberta, and Dale Blyth 1987 Moving into Adolescence: The Impact of Pubertal Change and School Context. New York: Aldine.

Spain, Daphne, and Suzanne M. Bianchi 1996 Balancing Act: Motherhood, Marriage, and Employment among American Women. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Stern, David, and Yoshi-Fumi Nakata 1989 ‘‘Characteristics of High School Students’ Paid Jobs, and Employment Experience after Graduation.’’ In D. Stern

and D. Eichorn, eds., Adolescence and Work. Influences of Social Structure, Labor Markets, and Culture. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Strauss, Anselm 1959 Mirrors and Masks: The Search for Identity. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press.

Sullivan, Mercer L. 1989 Getting Paid: Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Vinken, Henk, and Peter Ester 1992 ‘‘Modernization and Value Shifts: A Cross-Cultural and Longitudinal Analysis of Adolescents’ Basic Values.’’ In Wim Meeus, Martijn de Goede, Willem Kox, and Klaus Hurrelmann, eds., Adolescence, Careers, and Cultures. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Wells, L. Edward, and Sheldon Stryker 1988 ‘‘Stability and Change in Self over the Life Course.’’ In Paul Baltes, David Featherman, and Richard Lerner, eds.,

Life Span Development and Behavior. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

White, Merry 1993 The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America. New York: Free Press.

Wilson, William Julius 1987 The Truly Disadvantaged. The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

World Factbook, The 1998 Compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

JEYLAN T. MORTIMER

PAMELA ARONSON

AFFECT CONTROL THEORY AND IMPRESSION FORMATION

Sociologist Erving Goffman (1969) argued that people conduct themselves so as to generate impressions that maintain the identities, or ‘‘faces,’’ that they have in social situations. Human action— aside from accomplishing tasks—functions expressively in reflecting actors’ social positions and in preserving social order. Affect control theory (Heise 1979; Smith-Lovin and Heise 1988; MacKinnon 1994) continues Goffman’s thesis, providing a mathematized and empirically grounded model for explaining and predicting expressive aspects of action.

AFFECTIVE MEANING

Cross-cultural research among people speaking diverse languages in more than twenty-five nations around the world (Osgood, May, and Miron 1975) revealed that any person, behavior, object, setting, or property of persons evokes an affective response consisting of three components. One component consists of approval or disapproval of the entity—an evaluation based on morality (good versus bad), aesthetics (beautiful versus ugly), functionality (useful versus useless), hedonism

(pleasant versus unpleasant), or some other criterion. Whatever the primary basis of evaluation, it tends to generalize to other bases, so, for example, something that is useful tends also to seem good, beautiful, and pleasant.

Another component of affective responses is a potency assessment made in terms of physical proportions (large versus small, deep versus shallow), strength (strong versus weak), influence (powerful versus powerless), or other criteria. Again, judgments on the basis of one criterion tend to generalize to other criteria, so, for example, a powerful person seems large, deep (in a metaphorical sense), and strong.

The third component of affective responses— an appraisal of activity—may depend on speed (fast versus slow), perceptual stimulation (noisy versus quiet, bright versus dim), age (young versus old), keenness (sharp versus dull), or other criteria. These criteria also generalize to some degree so, for example, a young person often seems metaphorically fast, noisy, bright, and sharp.

The evaluation, potency, and activity (EPA) structure in subjective responses is one of the bestdocumented facts in social science, and an elaborate technology has developed for measuring EPA responses on ‘‘semantic differential scales’’ (Heise 1969). The scales consist of adjectives separated by a number of check positions. For example, a standard scale has Good–Nice at one end and Bad– Awful at the other end, and intervening positions on the scale allow respondents to record the direction and intensity of their evaluations of a stimulus. The middle rating position on such scales represents neutrality and is coded 0.0. Positions moving outward are labeled ‘‘slightly,’’ ‘‘quite,’’ ‘‘extremely,’’ and ‘‘infinitely,’’ and they are coded

1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.3 respectively—positive on the good, potent, and active sides of the scales; and

negative on the bad, impotent, and inactive sides (Heise 1978).

EPA responses tend to be socially shared within a population (Heise 1966, 1999), so a group’s average EPA response to an entity indexes the group sentiment about the entity. Group sentiments can be computed from as few as thirty ratings since each rater’s transient response originates from a single shared sentiment rather than a separately held position (Romney, Weller, and

Batchelder 1986). Sentiments vary across cultures.

For example, potent authorities such as an employer are evaluated positively in U.S. and Canadian college populations, but German students evaluate authorities negatively; small children are evaluated positively in Western nations but neutrally in Japan.

IMPRESSION FORMATION

Combinations of cognitive elements bring affective meanings together and create outcome impressions through psychological processes that are complex, subtle, and yet highly predictable (Gollob 1974; Heise 1979; Anderson 1996).

One kind of impression formation amalgamates a personal attribute with a social identity resulting in a sense of how a person is different from similar others (Averett and Heise 1987). For example, among U.S. college students (the population of raters for examples henceforth), someone who is rich is evaluatively neutral, very powerful, and a little on the quiet side. Meanwhile, a professor is fairly good, fairly powerful, and a bit quiet. The notion of a ‘‘rich professor’’ combines these sentiments and yields a different outcome. A rich professor is evaluated somewhat negatively, mainly because the personalized power of wealth generates an uneasiness that is not overcome by esteem for academic status. A rich professor seems very powerful because the average potency of wealth and of professors is high, and the mind adds an extra increment of potency because of the personalized power deriving from wealth. A rich professor seems even quieter than the component statuses because activity connotations do not merely average, they summate to some degree.

The processes that are involved in combining a social identity with a status characteristic like ‘‘rich’’ also are involved in combining a social

identity with personal traits. Thus, an authoritarian professor evokes an impression roughly similar to a rich professor since the affective association for authoritarian is similar to that for rich.

Another example involving emotion illustrates additional processes involved in combining personal characteristics with social identities (Heise and Thomas 1989). Being outraged implies that one is feeling quite bad, somewhat potent, and somewhat lively. A child is felt to be quite good, quite impotent, and very active. The combination ‘‘outraged child,’’ seems fairly bad, partly because the child is flaunting personalized power deriving from an emotion and partly because the mind discounts customary esteem for a person if there is a personal basis for evaluating the person negatively: The child’s negative emotion undercuts the regard one usually has for a child. The child’s impotency is reduced because of a bad and potent emotional state. And the child’s activity is greater than usual because the activity of the emotion and the activity of the identity combine additively.

The combining of attributions and identities involves somewhat different processes in different domains. For example, North American males and females process attributions in the same way, though both make attributions about females that are more governed by morality considerations than attributions about males (Heise 1999). Meanwhile, Japanese males are socialized to be more concerned than Japanese females with evaluative consistency in attributions and with matching goodness and weakness, so Japanese males process attributions about everything with more concern for morality than do Japanese females (Smith, Matsuno, and Ike 1999).

Events are another basis for impression formation. A social event—an actor behaving on an object or person within some setting—amalgamates EPA impressions of the elements comprising the event and generates a new impression of each element. For example, when an athlete strangles a coach, the athlete seems bad, and the coach seems cowardly because the coach loses both goodness and potency as a result of the event. The complex equations for predicting outcome impressions from input impressions have been found to be similar in different cultures (Heise 1979; Smith-Lovin 1987a; Smith-Lovin 1987b; Smith, Matsuno, and

Umino 1994).

To a degree, the character of a behavior diffuses to the actor who performs the behavior. For example, an admired person who engages in a violent act seems less good, more potent, and more active than usual. Impressions of the actor also are influenced by complex interplays between the nature of the behavior and the nature of the object. For example, violence toward an enemy does not stigmatize an actor nearly so much as violence toward a child. That is because bad, forceful behaviors toward bad, potent objects seem justified while such behaviors toward good, weak objects seem ruthless. Moreover, the degree of justification or of ruthlessness depends on how good the actor was in the first place; for example, a person who acts violently toward a child loses more respect if initially esteemed than if already stigmatized.

Similarly, diffusions of feeling from one event element to another and complex interplays between event elements generate impressions of behaviors, objects, and settings. The general principle is that initial affective meanings of event elements combine and thereby produce new impressions that reflect the meaning of the event.

Those impressions are transient because they, in turn, are the meanings that are transformed by later events.

IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

Normal events produce transient impressions that match sentiments, whereas events that generate impressions deviating widely from sentiments seem abnormal (Heise and MacKinnon 1987). For example, ‘‘a parent assisting a child’’ creates impressions of parent, child, and assisting that are close to sentiments provided by our culture, and the event seems normal. On the other hand, ‘‘a parent harming a child’’ seems abnormal because the event produces negative impressions of parent and child that are far different than the culturallygiven notions that parents and children are good.

According to affect control theory, people manage events so as to match transient impressions with sentiments and thereby maintain normality in their experience. Expressive shaping of events occurs within orderly rational action, and ordinarily the expressive and the rational components of action complement each other because