TEACHING ABOUT THE LIFE COURSE PERSPECTIVE: A CLASS PROJECT |
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| Authors: | Paula M Usita |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina, USAfreudemana@uncw.edu;3. Department of Gerontology, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA |
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| Abstract: | The life course perspective is a dynamic framework that attends to individual and family lives within historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. Students of the life course are increasingly interested in how such a perspective can be used to understand family lives. Opportunities for students to examine the utility of the life course perspective to family gerontology may enhance their understanding of the perspective's content and application with older family relationships. Students in a graduate course with a focus on life course and family gerontology completed a project in which they identified life course concepts and developed a model that could be used to explain relationship interactions between immigrant mothers and their adult daughters. Student feedback indicated that the assignment sharpened their knowledge of life course concepts, made the concepts more "real," and increased their understanding of the connections between life course concepts. Suggestions for incorporating this project in another graduate course and using a similar project in an undergraduate course are provided. |
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