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Within the past twenty years, the transition to adulthood has become a burgeoning area of research. The status attainment process, an early model for transition to adulthood research, has given way to research focusing on singular outcomes such as completing formal education, leaving home, obtaining employment, forming a union through marriage or cohabitation, and becoming a parent. As young adults continue to delay family formation, some argue that one’s first experience of heterosexual intercourse is also a symbol of adult status (Meier, 2001). Although most scholars agree that these outcomes along with chronological age symbolize being an adult, relatively few empirical studies examine them as inter-dependent transitions. A recent comparison of these indicators by gender, race, and social class is also needed.

Purpose – Conservative Protestantism is conceptualized as a cultural framework influencing class formation and transmission in the United States.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The framework is tested using Public-Use Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), Waves I, III, and IV. Four key outcomes – educational attainment, earnings, marriage, and parenting – are modeled as functions of class background and religious affiliation, controlling for other factors.

Findings – Religious affiliation and their effects on the normative pathways to adulthood help explain differential social mobility and the imperfect transmission of social class across generations. Religious culture plays an independent role in producing lower adult attainment via the life choices of conservative Protestant youth during the transition to adulthood.

Research limitations/Implications – This study is limited by the final age range (24–32 years) of the sample in Wave IV.

Originality/Value – Contributes to literature on conservative Protestants' educational attainment and labor force participation by charting the educational and income achievement of youth from varying class origins and identifying how childhood class location and childhood religious affiliation interact to affect adult socioeconomic status.

Purpose – Our study focuses on the impacts of young adults’ financial situation and agency on success and satisfaction regarding developmental tasks (attainments in educational, work and social domains) in the context of economic upheavals.

Methodology/approach – The study is part of the longitudinal Finnish Educational Transitions Studies (FinEdu), in which high school students (N=614 at baseline) participated once before and three times after graduation (ages 19–25) while progressing to tertiary education and employment.

Findings – Agency (indicated by achievement and social approach strategies) increased, whereas achievement and social avoidance decreased from ages 19 to 25. Financial situation improved from an objective but not subjective perspective. Both high and increasing levels of agency were related to high levels of success and satisfaction regarding developmental tasks at age 25. In particular, social approach was related to educational attainment, sense of belonging, and romantic relationship satisfaction. High initial levels of agency and an improved financial situation predicted low economic pressure at age 25.

Research implications – Both sociopolitical structures and individual agency are important in shaping life course transitions in early adulthood. The apparent discrepancy between the macro-level national economic recession and young adults’ relatively high economic satisfaction could be explained by high agency in a welfare state context.

Social implications – The study shows important links between individuals’ life course and the societal context of Finland, a secure Nordic welfare state in the midst of global economic upheavals.

Originality/value of paper – Our longitudinal study makes a significant contribution to life course research by comprehensively conceptualizing the developmental tasks and considering their individual and social determinants.

The Epidemiologic Transition can help us understand a fundamental puzzle about aging. The puzzle stems from two seemingly contradictory facts. The first fact is that death rates from noninfectious degenerative maladies – the so-called diseases of aging – increase as people age. It seems to be at odds with the historical fact that for nearly a century in which people were aging more than ever before, the aggregate rates of such diseases have been decreasing. In what sense can both be true? Crucial to resolving the puzzle are the age-profiles of such diseases in cohorts that grew up in the different regimes of the Transition. For each cohort, noninfectious diseases had increased with age, resulting in an upward-sloping age profile, which affirms the first fact. As the regimes were transitioning from the Malthusian to the modern one, however, the profiles of successive cohorts had been shifting downward: death rates from noninfectious diseases were shrinking at each age, signifying the newer cohorts’ greater aging potentials. The shifting profiles had been renewing the cohort mix of the population, shaping the century-long descent of such diseases in aggregate, giving rise to the historical fact. The profiles had shifted early in the cohorts’ adult years, associating closely with the newer epidemiologic conditions in childhood. Those conditions appear to be a circumstance under which aging potentials of cohorts could be misgauged, including in one troubling episode in the first half of the nineteenth century when the potentials had reversed.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS) and the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2), this study compared the post-high school outcomes of young adults with learning disabilities (LD) or emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) in 1990 and 2005. These cohort comparisons reveal how the results of special education have changed over that time period as evidenced in the post-high school outcomes of nationally representative samples of youth. The extended data collection time period of NLTS2 (2001–2009) also enabled an assessment of the evolution in the post-high school outcomes of young adults with LD or EBD who had been out of high school up to 8 years. The post-high school outcomes considered included high school completion, postsecondary education enrollment and completion, employment status and wages, and community integration as illustrated by living arrangements and criminal justice system involvement. Findings for both the NLTS/NLTS2 cohort comparisons and the longitudinal analyses from NLTS2 indicate progress in efforts to improve outcomes for youth and young adults with LD or EBD but also underscore the work ahead in setting these groups on a path to successful adulthood. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

This chapter focuses on the heterogeneous pathways (including marital and cohabiting union and parenting histories) through which people navigate their family life courses from adolescence through mid-life, and their implications for union dissolution in middle and later life. The analyses draw on data (retrospective, cross-sectional) from the 2011 and 2017 Canadian General Social Surveys. The study sample includes individuals aged 50 and over (n = 14,547) who were in a union at age 50. Sequence analyses are used to identify the most common family life course trajectories among these individuals from adolescence through midlife (ages 15–50). Logistic regression analyses then address the implications of these trajectories for union dissolution in middle and later life (ages 50+). The results reveal four main family trajectories that characterize the earlier years of the adult life course: married with children, cohabiting with children, single or cohabiting without children, and married without children. These family trajectories, together with their level of complexity, play an important role in relation to both marital and cohabiting union dissolution outcomes in later life.

Transition is important to all students but especially important to students with intellectual disability who may need additional supports throughout their vertical transitions in education. This chapter discusses different vertical transitions students with intellectual disability face in education, with particular attention to the movement from high school to adult life. Throughout the chapter, research regarding current transition practices and outcomes for students with intellectual disability is discussed as well as evidence-based practices to support students with intellectual disability as they transition to post-school.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines transition as “a passing or passage from one condition, action, or (rarely) place, to another; change.” This definition captures the essence of the transition as experienced by youth and young adults with disabilities as they move from school to postschool settings. Additionally, the definition also raises the issue that transition encompasses the existential experience not only of passing from one condition (of being a student/child to becoming a graduate/an adult) but also of the physical movement/passage (from school services to adult services) and the change therein. This chapter begins by providing a brief historical framing of transition both from the standpoint of legal foundations of transition and the findings from early research on the postschool outcomes experienced by graduates of special education. In addition, the impact of those findings is discussed regarding the formulation and articulation of transition as a mandated element in the educational planning for students with disabilities at the secondary level. Next, the chapter reviews the initial models of transition that were developed and/or proposed as a way for meeting the needs of secondary age students with disabilities as identified in research. The essential elements of transition expressed in the transition definition provided by Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1990 and subsequent amendments are then described. A discussion of issues related to the best and promising practices in transition concludes the chapter.

The concept of transition and preparation for adult life has been an important yet controversial governmental initiative since the early 1980s. This governmental focus prompted special educators to develop and implement curricula to better prepare students with disabilities for adult life (Price, Gerber, & Mulligan, 2007). The curricula process involves forming linkages among local educational agencies and other human service agencies, including employment and training, adult services, leisure and recreation, and health and rehabilitation. Educators and policy makers continue to encounter great challenges to building capacity and sustained implementation of the transition curricula process at both the local school and the community levels.

In the years following high school, youth, including youth with extensive support needs, aspire to pursue a range of personally important experiences, such as attending postsecondary education programs, obtaining competitive employment, and living independently. However, the level of disability continues to be a powerful predictor of the degree to which desired outcomes materialize in early adulthood. For most young adults with extensive support needs, valued outcomes are elusive. To support youth with disabilities, including youth with extensive support needs, to progress toward achieving their post-school goals, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 mandated the provision of transition services. Despite the legal mandate for transition services, numerous factors continue to impact the outcomes experienced by youth with extensive support needs. However, research has identified numerous practices to support improved post-school outcomes. In this chapter, we address the transition mandates of the IDEA, identify and describe factors influencing the post-school outcomes of youth with extensive support needs, and provide strategies, practices, and interventions for improving these outcomes.