American Lives: Looking Back at the Children of the Great Depression - Softcover

Clausen, John A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520201493 ISBN 13: 9780520201491

Publisher: University of California Press, 1995

Synopsis

To what degree is the course of human life prefigured by the childhood and adolescent years? John A. Clausen, long associated with the now famous Berkeley Longitudinal Studies, draws on sixty years of research from this, the largest long-term inquiry into human lives ever conducted, to answer this question.

About this title

About the Author:

John A. Clausen is Professor of Sociology Emeritus and former Director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Six in-depth life histories--plus much ancillary material-- drawn from the Berkeley Longitudinal Studies and illustrating Clausen's theory that choices made in youth determine the courses of our lives. In 1960, upon becoming director of the University of California's Institute of Human Development, the author inherited three separate Bay Area studies begun in the late 20's and early 30's, each study having its own purpose and duration. The 300 subjects of "the largest long-term inquiry into human lives ever conducted" were almost all Caucasians and hardly representative of the population-at-large. Pooling data from the studies, Clausen formulated his theory of "adolescent planful competence"--defined here as a combination of self-confidence, intellectual investment, and dependability--as a predictor of life development. But there are inherent problems in the disparate methods of the studies: The six men and women discussed in depth here were interviewed at different intervals and, because of the original study designs, not at all during their 20s and 30s--and retrospective interviews, Clausen concedes, can't substitute for timely ones. Furthermore, each of the studies used different measurements, and--since during the Depression "wise" choices for male adolescents differed radically from those for females--sex-engendered bias abounds in the life histories. Yet all are fascinating to read, reflecting not only changing mores but also 60 years' worth of traumatic national events: the Depression, WW II, the Korean War, and--perhaps most devastating in its effects on families--the Vietnam War. The lives make up about two-fifths of this lengthy work and, except perhpas to other behavioral scientists, are much more readable than the voluminous commentaries, charts, graphs, and tables with which they're interspersed. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0520201493
• ISBN 13: 9780520201491
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 592