Introduction

Abstract

The theme of the 1986 BSA conference, the Sociology of the Life Cycle, attracted many contributions which, in addressing the problem of how to conceptualise and analyse the individual’s progression through life, raised the issue of the relative utility of a life-cycle approach as compared with a life-course perspective. The former is distinguished by its emphasis on ‘ages and stages’ in life, the latter emphasises the individual’s transitions into those stages in changing historical conditions. The implicit contrast in the two frameworks of analysis is one of a biological and social inevitability, irrespective of individual differerences, set against an approach which allows for the interaction of the individual with social structures which are subject to historical change. While a case could be made for the abandonment of the life-cycle approach because of its apparent simplicity — that is, its lack of fit with the complexities of people’s lives and its overtones of determinism — the chapters in the present volume, taken collectively, illustrate the analytical power of both conceptualisations for understanding the ideological mechanisms of control which sustain social structures as well as in unravelling the complex strands which make up an individual’s personal history.