Residues of a Movement: The Aging of the American Protest Generation

M. Kent Jennings

American Political Science Review, 1987, vol. 81, issue 2, 367-382

Abstract: The theory of political generations asserts that enduring and relevant political consequences result from critical experiences during the formative years. This study draws on a national three-wave panel study of young adults surveyed in 1965, 1973, and 1982 to test the theory with respect to the Vietnam era protest movement. College-educated protestors and nonprotestors are compared with themselves and with each other over time. Generational effects are categorized into absolute, relative, and equivalent continuity. Very strong continuities emerge for attitudes associated with the protestors' political baptism. Although erosion effects appear in more contemporary affairs, the protest generation remains quite distinctive. However, its limited size dampens the generation's political impact and qualifies the general thesis in a fashion that probably characterizes other examples of political generations also.

Date: 1987
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:81:y:1987:i:02:p:367-382_19

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().