Student Role Supports for Younger and Older Middle- Aged Women: Application of a Life Event Model

Charlene Thacker
, Mark Novak

Abstract

This paper is a report on a study of 276 women aged 35 to 64 who have re-entered university. We used the life-event framework to focus on the stress of university life, on the methods these women use to cope with stress and on their adaptations to the demands of school. We compared the re-entry experience of two sub-groups in our population: students aged 35 to 44 (with young families) and those aged 45 to 64 (with mature families). We found that each group had different motives for attending school, each group felt different strains during the school year and each group used different methods and resources to cope with the demands of student life. The paper concludes with a review of the literature on programs that meet the needs of re-entry women. We note the applicability of these programs to the distinct needs of younger and older re-entry women and we encourage the development of more programs to meet both groups' needs.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Published

1991-04-30



Section

Articles



License

Copyright in the article is vested with the Author under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).


How to Cite

Thacker, C., & Novak, M. (1991). Student Role Supports for Younger and Older Middle- Aged Women: Application of a Life Event Model. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 21(1), 13–36. https://doi.org/10.47678/cjhe.v21i1.183092