Life Course Theory Analysis

Students between ages 9 and 16 (approximately 8th through 10th grades) represent the developmental stage of adolescence when they explore autonomy, form identity shaped by internal and external influences, place importance on friendship and realize that their parents are not perfect, worry about their failure (such as in academic, personal etc.), make efforts to have new friends, analyze their inner experiences, experiment with risky behaviors, and develop perceptions about self and others (Muuss, Velder, & Porton, 1996). It is a meaning forming stage for adolescents, which is associated with their self-perceptions and influenced by socio-historical and geographical locations, social ties, social and parental control, and lived experiences
The theoretical approaches which inform the proposed study are the Life Course Theory (Elder, 1998) and Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1978). The main premise of the Life Course Theory is that children’s changing course of life alters developmental trajectories (Elder, 1998). As a concept, a life course is defined as "a sequence of socially defined events and roles that the individual enacts over time" (Giele & Elder 1998, p. 22). According to Bandura (1978), human behavior is determined by the actions, cognitions, and life course, which form reciprocal determinism. Further, he said that human behavior is an interplay of personal variables such as self-efficacy (belief in one’s ability to succeed), motivations and goals, and the environment. For Bandura (1978), environmental influence is comprised of both – environmental consequences created by one’s own actions as well as other people’s actions. The psychological functioning of adolescents involves a continuous reciprocal interaction between behavioral, cognitive, and environmental influences. Social Learning theory sees behavior in terms of “reciprocal determinism;” Bandura has not used “determinism” as