The cool ones

Abstract

Some say the present student generation is like every other one; only the form and style of its antics change. One generation swallows goldfish; another takes pot and LSD. Others say student generations do change, not just in form and style but in their basic character. The argument is that when a society is relatively stable, one student generation is probably similar to the next. But when society changes, par ticularly as rapidly as ours, then much of that change is bound to work its way into the personalities of young people as they learn to adapt to the society's changing expectations and values. Of course there is no one type of student generation, though certain kinds of students, like the angry youths of the New Left, the hip pies, and the peaceniks, so capture the attention of Time and TV that they give the impression that great numbers of young people are like them and share their mission or way of life. In spite of the apparently great differences among students of the current college generation, American young people are probably much more similar to one another today than they were to each other in the forties and fifties. We cannot escape the homogenizing effects the mass media and other cultural forces have upon our per sonalities and values. Regional, religious, and ethnic differences are receding as im portant determinants of variety among college students. Some colleges no longer seek diverse geographical representation in their student bodies because they have found Californians differ little from New Englanders; southerners are becoming more national in values and character as well. Studies show that students in some colleges