Structuration and individualization: The life course as a continuous, multilevel process
Sociologists have long recognized the promise of cross-level analysis for linking individual behaviors to social structures and for distinguishing the separate processes operating between levels. However, until recently methodological obstacles have hindered the successful achievement of this promise. Theoretical expositions on the transposition between levels of analysis extend back to the early fifties, including a particularly insightful and prophetic discussion by C. Wright Mills (1953) who anticipated the pivotal role of methodological as opposed to conceptual innovations for the ultimate resolution of these issues. The specification of the properties of collectivities at successive levels of analysis (e.g. Coleman, 1970) and the separation of structural from individual effects (e.g. Blau, 1960) are among the earliest and most persistent conceptual concerns that are now arriving at some methodological solution (e.g. Huber, 1991; DiPrete and Forristal, 1994).
