Glen H. Elder, Jr.
Ph.D., Research Professor,
Sociology
Research Professor, Psychology
Dr. Elder, Jr.'s Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Elder, Jr.'s Personal Home Page
CPC Office: 401-D CPC East
CPC Phone Number: (919) 966-2831
Campus Office:
Campus Phone Number: (919) 966-6660
Email: glen_elder@unc.edu
Glen H. Elder, Jr. is a Howard W. Odum Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology. He pioneered life course perspectives as a research area. His current research also fits two of CPC's other signature themes: fertility, families, and children; and population movement, diversity, and inequality.Elder has devoted his career to understanding the reciprocal effects of changing environments and people's lives using longitudinal studies of individuals and cohort members. He continues to be very productive, with two edited volumes and over 30 journal publications since 2004. Recently, he has investigated the cumulative dynamics by which socioeconomic disadvantage has increasingly adverse effects on health into the later years (e.g., Willson et al. 2007). Elder is also investigating adaptations to socioeconomic decline and disadvantage. His research shows that young people with a background of disadvantage are most likely to benefit from the guidance of significant adults outside the family-particularly community adults in getting a job, and teachers in moving ahead in education (McDonald et al., 2007; Erickson et al., 2009). With data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Elder and his research group (Elder et al, 2010; Wang, Spence & Elder, under review) have been investigating pathways to the all-volunteer military force and the greater access of young people in the military to higher education. Data from Wave IV have also enabled the project to investigate the educational and work-life benefits of military service. Elder also actively contributes to life course theory and methods in general. In 1998, he prepared a comprehensive chapter on the life course and human development for a handbook. New attention to human agency and other developments were incorporated by Elder in a revision (Elder & Shanahan, 2006) and another chapter update is in process (2012) with emphasis on the contextual influence of historical times and their ecological dynamics.
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Information updated on 2/28/2013
