Ross Macmillan
Associate Professor and Director,
Life Course Center
Ph.D. 1998 University of Toronto
Room 1039 Social Sciences
tel.: 612-624-6509
email: macmi005@umn.edu
Interest Areas
Life Course Studies; Immigration; Health; Research Methodology and Social Statistics.
Current Research
"Unraveling Education and Health in the Era of ‘New’ Immigration." This is a multi-phase study of the relationship between educational attainment and health among contemporary American immigrants. The first phase of the study involves secondary data analysis to build an knowledge base on education-health gradients across a range of health outcomes (i.e., self-report, diagnoses, biomarkers) and across several stages of the life course. The second phase will be a pilot study to collect detailed data on educational experiences and health biographies among a range of immigrant and non-immigrant populations. The final phase will be a community-based participatory research project involving a longitudinal assessment of education and health within and across families, as well as systematic evaluation of strategic education based interventions aimed at enhancing preventative care and promoting health behaviors. This research is funded by a generous grant from the Child, Youth, and Family Consortium Scholars Program.
"The Structuring of the Life Course in Modern Society." This research examines the structure of the life course through the use of a latent pathway approach. The specific goal is to better understand variation in the different sociodemographic routes that individuals take into adulthood and to identify factors that facilitate more efficacious pathways, as well as those that put people at risk for problematic or difficult ones. Specific projects include: a) examination of race-sex variation in the transition to adulthood; b) social change in the transition to adulthood in the US, 1950-2000; and c) the role of social origins and psychological orientations in the life course.
"Disability in the Life Course." This research examines the implications of physical and mental disability for the unfolding life course. Here, disability is studied as a structuring force in the life course that shapes both pathways through school, work, and family and serves to link social origins with life course attainments and experiences.
Recent Publications
Biography and the Sociological Imagination: Contexts and Contingencies, with Michael Shanahan. 2007. Contemporary Societies Series. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company.
"'Constructing Adulthood': Agency and Subjectivity in the Life Course." 2006. Advances in Life Course Research, Vol. 10, T. Owens, ed. Greenwich, CT: Elsevier/JAI Press.
"Families in the life course: Interdependency of roles, role configurations, and pathways," with Ronda Copher. 2005. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 67: 858-879.