Life course research is an

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

field in the

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

and

behavioral science Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through naturalist ...

s. Developed during the 1960s, it aims to study

human development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body * Developmental psychology * Human development (economics) * Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development * Human evolution, the prehistoric ...

over the entire life span. As such, it brings together aspects of human development that had previously only been studied separately. In the 1970s, scholars first started to commonly refer to their field as "life course research". The field includes research conceptualizing the life course as one of many different concepts, including developmental processes, cultural constructs, and demographic accounts.

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