Re: [xmca] transition to adulthood

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

Larry's last message on this topic (below) explored the linkages between activity systems and personal experience in the appearance of a new developmental stage. Tamara Hareven has written about this linkage too. In her paper Historical Changes in the Family and the Life Course: Implications for Child Development (Hareven, 1985) she proposes a model:

"First, individuals become aware of new characteristics in their private experience. The articulation of such a stage and of the conditions unique to it is then formulated by the professionals and eventually recognized in the popular culture. Finally, if the conditions seem to be associated with a major social problem, it attracts the attention of public agencies, and its needs and problems are dealt with in legislation and in the establishment of institutions. Those public activities in turn affect the experience of individuals going through such a stage and clearly influence the timing of transitions in and out of it." (17)

I unpack this as follows:

1. some people experience new characteristics to their lives associated with a particular age-related (but not necessarily age-defined) status.
2. professionals articulate this experience.
3. popular culture catches on.
4. pubic agencies pay attention if it is associated with social problems.
5. legislation establishes institutions.
6. these in turn influence many more individuals' experiences and affect the number and timing of transitions in and out. 

Hareven goes on to illustrate the process: She suggests that in the US childhood was first discovered in middle-class urban families in the early C19, as the domestic family emerged, the home was segregated from the workplace, the mother was defined as the person in charge of domestic affairs, and family relations became more based on sentiment. Declining infant and child mortality and voluntary limitation of family size played a role.  

How-to literature on child-rearing and family advice then grew. Laws were passed regulating child labor and schooling, and this institutionalized the new stage of childhood. What had been restricted to a particular group now became the norm for all.

Adolescence followed a similar pattern in the second half of C19. Young people congregated in peer groups, a concern when they were immigrants in the cities. This was discussed in the popular literature; G. Stanley Hall wrote his famous study. The school leaving age was extended, vocational schools were introduced. Again, what had started as a specific experience for some became a normative experience for most, mediated by cultural processes and social institutions.

Martin

On Sep 2, 2010, at 11:44 AM, Larry Purss wrote:

> Martin and Mike
> Thanks for inviting thoughts on the "new" stage beyond adolescence.
> 
> The term "transitions" could be interpreted as moving from one activity
> system [school] with its shared object of "getting an education" to a
> "supposed" other activity system [work] which seems to be the hallmark of
> "becoming adult"  Now what happens experientially to the person when
> this work activity system no longer exists to transition into?  The person's
> subjective actions become "disoriented" without a shared system of
> activities and shared objects to orient ones actions.  If this structural
> and historical change in the historical "transition" to the information age
> comes to dominate our Western institutional structural arrangements [ with
> the resulting loss of shared activity systems] then the person becomes
> "dependent" on  others who are living their lives oriented to work with
> shared objects and shared activity SYSTEMS.
> 
> The result is a generation or cohort of young men and women who have grown
> up anticipating that they are naturally  "developing" and moving through the
> stages from childhood to adolescence and into the shared world of work. In
> our modern institutional frameworks that locates this
> "inner development" within a universal process of maturation, failure to
> "develop" is interpreted as "continuing dependency" and having to be
> supported by "others" who are "independent" [occupy positions in shared
> activity systems with shared objects]
> 
> The "common sense" explanation [guided by psychological notions], when they
> observe an entire generation of young adults "refusing" to take on the
> responsibilities of adulthood [ie taking care of ONE'S SELF] look for an
> explanation within maturation theory and the young adults "resisting" moving
> through the natural stages of development. THE BLAME for this societal
> system of institutionalized activity is located as a "lack"
> within individual motivation.  If only the person had "goals" and "motives"
> like the older generation who finished school, set individual goals, and
> transitioned" into the work world and took their places as "adults".
> 
> This is my reflection as I read the snippet of the article you are
> composing.
> The ongoing question I would like to add is where do we locate the notion of
> "affiliation" in these  historical narratives.  Developing "higher mental
> functions" "transforms" affiliative relationships but I happen to believe
> "affiliation" remains a central subjective phenomenological motive
> [action] AND a central object of activity SYSTEMS.
> 
> Affiliation [and attachment] which are seen as fundamental prime movers
> [actions]  developmentally at the earlier "lower levels" are theorized as
> not continuing to be prime movers and receding into the background in later
> developmental stages.  [Is this assumption about "affiliation" as a prime
> mover at one stage of development but not a prime mover at later stages of
> development an accurate portrayal of some developmental theoretical
> accounts?]
> 
> In the reflecting on developmental "transitions" from "adolesence" towards
> "independence" there seems to be a tendency [bias??] to minimize this aspect
> of "affiliation" as continuing to be a prime mover in BOTH personal actions
> and goals as well as being an aspect of  "objects" of activity SYSTEMS.  In
> particular, what happens to "affiliation" [attachment]  needs when young
> adults leave the shared activity SYSTEM of school [which both CONSTRAINED
> and CONSTITUTED identity formation] and do not have another activity system
> to enter. [except in the role of "dependent" and "immature" delayed
> adulthood.]
> 
> "Objects" of shared INSTITUTIONAL activity [as a unit of analysis] and
> hermeneutical "realism" [as a unit of analysis] are alternative  narrative
> accounts which seem to share some common assumptions.  Are there any
> articles which explicitly compare and contrast these alternative
> "traditions" as ways to describe, explain, and understand being human?
> 
> Larry
>  On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 1:50 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> For those interested, attached is part of a chapter that Martin P and I
>> wrote on culture in development for an advanced "developmental science"
>> textbook. The summary is very compacted, but there is perhaps enough here
>> to
>> be useful to those interested in the issues of stages, transitions,
>> etc. We are promising ourselves a more extended treatment under other
>> auspices, but there is this odd problem of finding time not already
>> occupied
>> by more compelling demands.
>> mike
>> 
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