ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces propositions and controversies about human development and the life course that are emerging across academic disciplines. It outlines some central principles that underlie and guide developmental theory and research, drawing especially on advances in life-course sociology and life-span developmental psychology. A fundamental premise of life-course scholarship is that individual development is lifelong. The theme of continuity and discontinuity throughout adult life is one of the great themes of developmental scholarship. Life-course scholarship emphasizes the likelihood that cohorts do not age alike, and that what is typical for one cohort may not apply to other cohorts. Life-course scholarship seeks to integrate action-oriented and structure-oriented perspectives, and to examine the reciprocal interaction between personal action and social structures. Life-course scholarship takes social contexts to be a set of systematically organized processes that have significant effects on development outcomes.
