Lifecourse Priorities Among Appalachian Emerging Adults: Revisiting Wallace's Organization of Diversity

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Ryan A. Brown, Emory University; David H. Rehkopf, Emory University; William E. Copeland, Duke University; E. Jane Costello, Duke University; Carol Worthman, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2009-06
• Publisher: The Society for Psychological Anthropology
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2009 by the American Anthropological Association
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01040.x
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Ethos
• ISSN: 0091-2131
• Volume: 37
• Issue: 2
• Start Page: 225
• End Page: 242
• Grant/Funding Information: Brown and Rehkopf thank the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for its financial support.; This research was supported by the W. T. Grant Foundation (DS804 383–2854 to Costello, Worthman, and Brown), the National Institutes of Health (NIMH NRSA 5 F31 MH064253–02 to Brown), and a Russell Sage Foundation Faculty Scholarship (Worthman).
• Keywords: Appalachia; American Indian; emerging adulthood; lifecourse; recursive partitioning
• Research Categories: Anthropology, Cultural; Psychology, Developmental; Sociology, Demography

Abstract

We examine how social demographics (gender, age, or race–ethnicity), census tract characteristics, and family environment during childhood relate to variability in the lifecourse priorities of 344 Cherokee and white youth during emerging adulthood (age 19–24). Analyses were performed using recursive partitioning and random forest methods to examine determinants of prioritizing education, family formation, economic establishment, self characteristics and close relationships, youth independence, conspicuous consumption, and community reliance. Overall, characteristics of census tracts were the most common and influential predictors of lifecourse priorities. Childhood family poverty, parental relationship problems, parental crime, and stressful life events were also important predictors. Race–ethnicity or cultural group (Cherokee vs. white), age, and gender were relatively unimportant. At this developmental stage and in this population, community characteristics and childhood family experiences may be better proxies for developmental settings (and resulting enculturated values and preferences) than social demographic variables (e.g., ethnicity or gender).