I don't know the difference between this two theories. I know that they have contact points, e.g. influence of social and historical context in human lives, the support networks and life-long process. But, I wonder what is the difference?
As you very well said, they do appear similar, I understand they could differ in their approach.
According to Vygotsky's theory, Social interpretation plays a fundamental role in cognitive development and every function in the child's cultural development appears twice - first on social level and later on individual level. And much of the research takes a "snap shot" look at social reality by drawn from cross-sectional research
In case of life course theorists, longitudinal data is used to answer questions about human development over life span - most study designs in life course perspective are longitudinal prospective (forward looking) !
Thanks for answer Rathish Nair. So, you claim that the difference is the type of data, i.e. in Vygotsky's theory we use cross-sectional data, and in life course perspective we use longitudinal data. Is that correct?
Hi Ratish:
I found papers that describe the difference between the two approaches:
Mayer - The sociology of the life course and life span psychology-Diverging or converging pathways (2002)
Diewald, Mayer - The sociology of the life course and life span psychology-Integrated paradigm or complementing pathways (2009)
Settersten - It takes two to tango-The (un)easy dance between life-course sociology and life-span psychology (2009)
Gilleard, Higgs - Connecting Life Span Development with the Sociology of the Life Course-A New Direction (Sociology, 2015)
Thanks for your opinions
This is really an interesting question because Elder and Vygotsky are indeed similar. Elder's originality consists in linking human lives with history. For him development takes always place in time and space.He is aware of an ever changing environment and this gives time, context social dynamics an increased visibility. It does not merely focus on the individual change process put remains open for the totality of history. Though Vygotsky is also interested in the interaction of individuals with their environment, he obviously does not refer so radically to history in its totality.
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