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Life Course, life cycle, life history, life span and life stage

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Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions

Life course means: (1) Events marking transitions and trajectories of roles extending across the life span, such as entering and leaving school, acquiring a full-time job, getting married, divorced, having children, retiring, and the like; (2) a perspective on the investigation of the changing environment of the individual and its developmental implications; (3) an approach offering a way of linking early life experiences to later life outcomes, such as the exposure to early life risk factors and their consequences for later life health.

Life cycle means: (1) In biology, the term refers to the continuous and irreversible sequence of changes undergone by an organism from one primary form, as a gamete, to the development of the same form again. (2) In sociology, the term refers to a series of stages, across the life span, such as childhood and middle age, which are socially constructed and characterize the course of existence of an individual.

Life history means: (1) In biology, the term...

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Correspondence to Duane F. Alwin .

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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Alwin, D.F. (2013). Life Course, life cycle, life history, life span and life stage. In: Runehov, A.L.C., Oviedo, L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_201175

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_201175

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