College and noncollege youth politics in 1972: An application of Mannheim's generation unit model

Abstract

This article examines youth politics employing Mannheim's theory of generation units. Specifically, a multivariate model was constructed to test and compare sets of social location and consciousness factors explaining political behavior among two random samples of college and noncollege youth. Just prior to the 1972 presidential election, 373 Syracuse University students and 134 local Syracuse residents between the ages of 18 and 25 were surveyed to determine their presidential candidate support and urge to participate in a demonstration. Path analysis was used to examine the direct, indirect, and total effects of the variables in the model. Results indicated that (1) the relationships predicting youth politics differed within and between the two youth groups; (2) 55% of the variance in presidential candidate support and 33% of the variance in urge to demonstrate were explained by the variables in the college student model, and the comparable figures for the noncollege group were 39% and 38%, respectively; (3) family status and personal political attitudes differentiated candidate support and urge to demonstrate among college students, while demographic characteristics, family status, and institutional confidence explained considerable variance in politics among the noncollege youth. The form of Mannheim's generation unit model provided a useful tool for comparing youth groups within the same generation; the contents await replication and verification.