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The traditional view of the life course as the patterned progression of individual experience through time has been challenged on several fronts. The emerging view is that patterned progression is subject to diverse social, historical, and cultural influences. This article extends the challenge by considering the way ordinary biographical work situationally and discursively shapes life course patterning in relation to local cultural and organizational usage. Ethnographic and narrative data from a variety of settings illustrate a social constructionist approach. Concluding comments address the link between the malleability of the life course and the increasing deprivatization of contemporary experience.
Gubrium et al. (Sat,) studied this question.