Glen Elder

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Glen Holl Elder, Jr. (born February 28, 1934 in Cleveland , Ohio ) is Professor of Sociology and Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . One of his main areas of research is the positive and negative effects of poverty on the life course.

biography

Elder graduated from Pennsylvania State University and Kent State University and received his PhD from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. In 1988 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Scientific work

Elder continued Kurt Lewin's approach to parenting styles in 1962, and has thus greatly influenced teacher education to this day.

One of his most important works was " Children of the Great Depression " (1974). The book was voted one of the most fascinating works in psychology since 1950 in a poll of SRDC members .

The book looks at the lives of children who grew up during the Great Depression and whose families were poor. A distinction is made between children from the working class and children from the middle class. Middle-class children appeared to be entrenched personalities in poverty. They were even a little more successful than middle-class children who had never been poor. Working class children suffered more from the impairments of poverty . But even here it can be said that the majority of them grew up to be normal people. Given the abject poverty at the time, that's an achievement.

Elder brought a new perspective to sociology through the work . He no longer saw children and young people as passive, but as competent actors. Children and adolescents are able to actively deal with the circumstances surrounding them and to make use of them to shape their lives successfully.

But at the same time all children are "children of their time and shift" and can of course only act within the historical possibilities that are available to them.

Works

  • Glen H. Elder: Family structure and the transmission of values ​​and norms in the process of child rearing , Dissertation 1961, ISBN 0-405-12966-1
  • Glen H. Elder, Jr., Rand D. Conger, E. Michael Foster, Monika Ardelt: Families Under Economic Pressure. Journal of Family Issues 13 (1) 1992. pp. 5-37
  • Rand D. Conger, Glen H. Elder, Jr., in collaboration with Frederick O. Lorenz, Ronald L. Simons, Les B. Whitbeck: Families in Troubled Times: Adapting to Change in Rural America . Hawthorne, NY / Aldine DeGruyter, 1994.
  • Rand D. Conger, Xiaojia Ge, Glen H. Elder, Jr., Frederick O. Lorenz, Ronald L. Simons: Economic Stress, Coercive Family Process, and Developmental Problems of Adolescents. Child Development 65 (2), 1994. pp. 541-561
  • Glen H. Elder, Jr., Laura Rudkin, Rand D. Conger: Intergenerational Continuity and Change in Rural America. Pp. 30-78 in Adult Intergenerational Relations: Effects of Societal Change, edited by Vern L. Bengtson, K. Warner Schaie, and Linda M. Burton. Springer, New York 1994.
  • Glen H. Elder, Jr., Elizabeth B. Robertson, Rand D. Conger: Fathers and Sons in Rural America: Occupational Choice and Intergenerational Ties Across the Life Course. Pp. 294-325 in Aging and Generational Relations Over the Life Course: A Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Tamara K. Hareven. Walter De Gruyter. Berlin 1996.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ unc.edu (accessed November 29, 2007; PDF; 239 kB)
  2. ↑ Glen H. Elder Jr .: Children of the Great Depression: Social Change in Life Experience. 25th Anniversary Edition. Westview Press, Boulder / CO 1999.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Elder, Glen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Elder, Glen Holl junior (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Cleveland , Ohio