title: Connecting Life Span Development with the Sociology of the Life Course: A New Direction.
abstract: The life course has become a topic of growing interest within the social sciences. Attempts to link this sub-discipline with life span developmental psychology have been called for but with little sign of success. In this paper, we seek to address three interlinked issues concerning the potential for a more productive interchange between life course sociology and life span psychology. The first is to try to account for the failure of these two sub-disciplines to achieve any deepening engagement with each other, despite the long-expressed desirability of that goal; the second is to draw attention to the scope for enriching the sociology of the life course through Erik Erikson's model of life span development; and the last is the potential for linking Eriksonian theory with current debates within mainstream sociology about the processes involved in 'individualisation' and 'self-reflexivity' as an alternative entry point to bring together these two fields of work.
authors.affiliation: UCL, UK.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gilleard
authors.affiliation: UCL, UK.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Higgs
keywords: Erik Erikson; identity; life course sociology; life span psychology; reflexivity