Was the “Greatest Generation” Always “Great”?

Stephen Earl Bennett
University of Southern Indiana

Introduction
     They are old now. Even the youngest is in her/his mid-seventies, and many are over 80. Paul Fussell wrote of The Boys’ Crusade (2003; see also Ambrose 1997:285-87), but the typical military person of the Second World War was older than those who fought in Vietnam. The late Raymond Gantter (1997), for example, was 30 years old when he landed in Europe in 1944. Samuel Hynes (1997:184) reports that World War II soldiers’ average age was 26, compared to under 19 in Vietnam.¹ According to Lee Kennett, the Selective Service System contributed to older soldiers in the Army (1997:22). On the other hand, the draft conscripted mostly teenagers during Vietnam (MSN Encarta 2006).
     Roughly 1,000 World War II veterans die every day. Of the 16.1 million who wore a U.S. uniform between 1940 and 1945, approximately four million are still alive.
 Nevertheless, America remains mesmerized by the “greatest generation” (Brokaw, 1998), a.k.a. the “long, civic generation” (Putnam 2000; see also Russert 2004). They fought “the good war” (Terkel 1984). As Theodore H. White puts it, “[w]e, our soldiers, had proved that Right makes Might” (1982:3; my italics). Moreover, White contends that “the intoxication” of victory in World War II lasted “a generation” (1982:3). According to Stephen Ambrose, “[t]he ‘We’ Generation of World War II (as in ‘We are all in this together’) was a special breed of men and women who did great things for America and the World” (1997:472; see also Bradley, with Powers [2000]; Hoyt [1988]; Kennett [1997]; Perret [1992]; Russert [2004].)
     Why study persons who came of age during the Great Depression and World War II? “The greatest generation” or the “long, civic generation” has been the object of praise, while young persons, especially Generation X and the DotNets, have been objects of opprobrium, when it comes to political and civic engagement. As Putnam notes (2000:254), the long, civic generation “has been exceptionally civic---voting more, joining more, reading more, trusting more, giving more.” If members of the Great Depression and World War II birth cohorts are to be held up as an exemplar, it behooves scholars to ascertain if they stood out in terms of “civic virtue” when relatively young.
     I intend to use the 1952, 1956, 1958, and 1960 American National Election Studies² to assess political attentiveness, information, and participation of individuals who came of age during the 1930s and 1940s. Some use will be made of Samuel Stouffer’s (1955) surveys of the American public in the spring of 1954, and the American data from the “Five Nation” Study, which were gathered in June, 1960 (Almond and Verba 1963). The focus will be on political, and not civic, engagement (see Skocpol 1997, for a good depiction of civic engagement). Dependent variables include information about and participation in politics, as well as key political dispositions, such as psychological involvement in public affairs, belief that government will be responsive to citizens’ efforts to influence decisions (a.k.a., external political efficacy; see Reef and Knoke 1999), citizen duty, and occasionally trust in government. (Several of these factors are alleged to be important components of civic virtue [Galston 2001].)
Issues Connected to “Generations”
     Someone who wishes to study age-related phenomena faces several problems. A conceptual difficulty, for example, is differentiating generational/birth cohort effects, period effects, and life-cycle effects (Braungart and Braungart, eds. 1993; Glenn 1977). In what follows, I shall refer mostly to birth cohorts, and not “generations,” because only certain age-related population elements manifest the kind of “self-identity” as a distinct population group that Mannheim (1952) holds is central to the notion of “generation” (see also Fredrickson 1965; Light 1988; Wohl, 1979). (I refer to Generation X and DotNets because these labels have been applied to these cohorts by other scholars [see, e.g., Zukin, et al. 2006].) I eschew focus on period effects because empirical determination of Zeitgeists is exceedingly tenuous. Finally, by looking at those who came of age during the Great Depression and World War II while they were still relatively young, I hope to avoid some of the aging effects that have vexed researchers who studied these people in later life. Should these analyses be broken down by gender, since men were especially likely to have seen military service (see, e.g., Segal and Segal 1976:203)? Since women of these cohorts were also likely to have been affected by the “Great Depression” and World War II, I have chosen not to do so. (Analyses of the data depicted below almost never turn up substantial gender-related differences, at least insofar as the New Dealers and World War II birth cohorts are concerned.)
     It is all-too-easy to forget that, along with the relatively high levels of political engagement that accompany middle-age (Miller and Shanks 1996), two additional factors have enhanced political engagement of those born around 1920: (1) these individuals are, on average, better educated than earlier birth cohorts, many of them benefiting from the G.I. Bill of Rights (Bennett 1996; Humes 2006; Mettler 2005)³; and (2) the emergence since 1980 of age-related issues, such as Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, has stimulated older persons’ political involvement (MacManus 1996).
 Dating and labeling birth cohort/generations is never easy. In what follows, the primary assumption is that young people acquire significant political orientations during adolescence (Adelson and O’Neil 1970; Sears 1975). Following Bennett and Bennett (1990), the following birth cohorts will be the focus of this study:
     (1.) “Pre-New Dealers,” or those born before 1909. These persons had already established political identities prior to the 1930s and 1940s. Someone born in 1908, for example, was 21 years old when the Great Depression began in 1929.
     (2.) “New Dealers,” or those born between 1909 and 1921, who came of-age during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Recall that Brokaw stipulates 1920 as the quintessential birth year of “the greatest generation.” Also, many of the younger members of this birth cohort served in World War II.
     (3.) “World War II,” or those born between 1922 and 1929, who first acquired political orientations while the nation was on the verge of or in the midst of World War II. (According to Robert Putnam [2000:254] persons born between 1925 and 1930 comprise the core of the “long, civic generation.”)
     (4.) “Cold Warriors,” or those born between 1930 and 1945, the oldest of whom could remember the waning days of the Second World War, but most of whom achieved maturity when the U.S. faced the Soviet Union and mainland China in the Cold War.
     Two additional considerations require a sidebar. First, as a birth cohort passes through the life-cycle, persons from the lower social orders are more likely to die at a younger age than those from upper SES echelons.⁴ This has a bearing on, among other things, a birth cohort’s later political engagement. Second, since educational attainment has risen in recent years,⁵ one must hold each birth cohort’s level of formal schooling constant. Scholars should upgrade levels of formal schooling among older birth cohorts, in order to “level the playing field” when comparing older to younger birth cohorts.
     Persons born around 1920—the year Brokaw (1998) stipulates—have been more psychologically involved in public affairs (Bennett 1986), more politically engaged (Miller and Shanks 1996), and more likely to belong to civic associations (Putnam 2000) than the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and the DotNets. Putnam (2000:see esp. chap. 14) builds his theory of declining social capital in the U.S. around the gradual departure of these birth cohorts from the electorate, and their replacement by subsequent birth cohorts less politically and civically engaged. (Ladd [1999] is a useful correction for some of Putnam’s arguments.)
     Many proponents of service-learning and/or civic education as a palliative for youthful disengagement from public affairs and civic life (see, e.g., Battistone and Hudson, eds. 1997), juxtapose older Americans, particularly those who came-of-age during the 1930s and 1940s, and today’s young. “The greatest generation,” or “the long civic generation” is held up as an exemplar to the young, particularly when it comes to “civic virtue.”
     But, have Americans who grew up during the Depression and World War II always been as they are described today? Paucity of relevant data precludes assessment of these people in the 1930s and 1940s. However, it is possible to draw some conclusions about them from high-quality, nationwide, surveys conducted between 1952 and 1960, when persons who had come of age during the Great Depression and World War II were still fairly young. Indeed, if one draws on the 1952 American National Election Study, Brokaw’s quintessential member of “the greatest generation” was only 32 years old. Even if one utilizes the 1960 ANES, someone born in 1920 was 40 years old.
     It is common to argue that service in the military during World War II goes a long way toward explaining high levels of political engagement among those who came of age during the 1930s and 1940s. Putnam reports that 80 percent of men born in the 1920s served in the military (2000:248). Stouffer’s surveys of the American public showed that roughly 70 percent of the men who were between 30 and 39—who would have been 20-29 years old in 1944—claimed to have served in the military. When the 1960 ANES asked about when respondents served in the military, most of these men—94 percent of New Dealers who said they had been in the military and 85 percent of those born between 1922 and 1929—served during World War II.
     Theodore H. White related a story of a group of World War II veterans who used skills learned in the service to thwart an old-time machine’s effort to steal an election in rural Tennessee (1978:329-31). White’s vignette encapsulated the notion that ideas and skills learned during their war-time service engendered and facilitated “the greatest generation’s” subsequent political engagement.
     I hypothesize that data from the 1950s will show that the New Deal and World War II cohorts do not stand out from earlier birth cohorts or the so-called Cold Warriors who immediately followed them in the U.S. population. Theories of political participation suggest this hypothesis (see Milbrath and Goel 1977). It is only much later, and in contrast to later birth cohorts that “the greatest generation’s” political attitudes and behaviors seem so different.
     By hypothesizing that Americans who came of age during the 1930s and 1940s did not stand out from earlier birth cohorts in terms of political involvement, I do not wish to disparage these individuals. I knew some of them in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. They were decent, hard-working individuals with strong family connections. They were also law-abiding, civically engaged, and quickly establishing themselves as “pillars of the community.” Nevertheless, one could say much the same for older persons at that time.
     If the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts’ higher rates of political engagement can be accounted for by war-time service, one wonders how proposals for service-learning/civic education ought to use these individuals as models. (Would we, for example, call for a restoration of the military draft, or at least some form of national service, to offset youthful disengagement?) On the other hand, if a sizable portion of these birth cohorts’ political engagement follows Miller and Shanks’ (1996:70-116) findings, proponents of service-learning, and especially of civic education, may be on solid ground.
The 1952-1956 American National Election Studies
     I begin with the 1952 American National Election Study, when the Pre-New Dealers’ average age was 58 years, the New Dealers’ average age was 37 years, the World War II birth cohort’s mean age was 27 years, and the average age of the Cold Warriors was 21 years. (These were the only birth cohorts comprising the electorate in 1952.) Table 1 presents these birth cohorts’ “civic virtue” in 1952.

     Keep in mind that the goal is to determine whether, when they were relatively young, “the greatest generation” stood out in terms of “civic virtue.” Although Table 1 presents a mixed picture, in the main the answer is “no.” New Dealers and the World War II birth cohort do not stand out relative to the birth cohorts that preceded or succeeded them. They were, for example, less attentive to the political campaigns⁶ than were the Pre-New Dealers. Granted, they were more likely to report voting than were the Cold Warriors, but the New Dealers and the World War II birth cohorts were slightly less likely to report voting than were the Pre-New Dealers. Nor were the New Dealers and the World War II cohorts especially likely to engage in campaign activities, such as trying to influence another person’s vote or attending a campaign rally, and they were not more inclined to think public officials would be responsive to public opinion,⁷ to have a very high sense of citizen duty,⁸ or follow the election campaign in the mass media.⁹
     Does the 1956 ANES show a different pattern? By 1956, the average age of the Pre- New Dealers had risen to 60 years, while that of the New Dealers was 41 years, the mean age of the World War II birth cohort was 31 years, and that of the Cold Warriors was 24 years.
     This analysis looked at the same variables as in 1952. The only difference between 1952 and 1956 was a slight change in the campaign-related media exposure variables. In 1956, respondents could answer “yes” or “no” to the campaign exposure variables.
     Since the central message of the 1956 data is the same as that in 1952, the 1956 data are not shown to save space. (I will provide copies of these tables on written request.) The men and women of the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts do not stand out from cohorts born before and after them. For the second straight American National Election Study, one is hard-pressed to refer to these two birth cohorts as “great.”
Trust in Government, 1958
     The 1958 ANES contained a battery of questions tapping what Stokes (1962) refers to as “basic political orientations.” A set of questions plumbed trust in government, a key political disposition (see esp. Citrin and Muste 1999). As Citrin and Muste note (1999:465), “[p]olitical trust refers to the faith people have in their government. This concept belongs to a large family of terms regarding the subjective level of support citizens give their political system” (see also Almond and Verba 1963). Given the federal government’s success in coping with the Great Depression, and especially U.S. victory in World War II, one would expect members of the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts to be especially friendly toward the central government.
     Before looking at cohorts’ responses to the four trust-in-government items, consider their respective average ages in 1958. The average age of Pre-New Dealers was slightly over 62 years; that of the New Dealers was just under 43 years; the mean age among the World War II birth cohort was 32 years and six months, and the average age of the Cold Warriors was just over 25 years.

     Although there are slight variations, which themselves differ from item to item, over-all, the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts do not deviate significantly from older or younger birth cohorts. Only two of the four relationships in the table are statistically significant, as judged by Pearson’s chi-square, at p = .05 or better: how much money does the government waste and how often can you trust the government to do the right thing. Kendall’s tau-c is anemic in both cases. The data in Table 2 disconfirm the expectation that New Dealers and World War II birth cohort would be substantially more positive about government than other birth cohorts.
     Before leaving this section, we take one look at the American data from Almond and Verba’s Five Nation Study (1963). I offer this information with some diffidence, for, unlike the ANES which code respondents’ actual age, “age” in the Five Nation Study had seven categories, from “18-25” to “60 and over.” Therefore, we have some slippage in trying to create the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts. Still, one can come close.
     The Five Nation Study asked respondents how much effect government had on their lives, and whether government “improved conditions,” “sometimes improved conditions and sometimes does not,” or the country would “be better off without the national government.” Almond and Verba (1963:80, 82) report that 85 percent of Americans felt that the national government had either “a great” or “some” impact on their daily lives, and roughly three-quarters opined that it improved conditions. Lane’s (1962:145-157) “common men” of Eastport, interviewed just a few years earlier, also had positive images of government.
 Did members of the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts stand out from older and younger Americans on these items? Members of these two cohorts were slightly more likely than others to opine either that the national government had “a great” or “some” effect, but when it came to assessing that effect, the New Dealers and World War II birth cohorts were not exceptional.
     Asked what it was about the country they were most proud of, Almond and Verba (1963:102) note that 85 percent of Americans pointed to facets of the political system. Although New Dealers and the World War II birth cohorts were slightly more likely than Pre-New Dealers to mention the political system (86 percent vs. 79 percent), these cohorts were essentially tied by the Cold Warriors (88 percent).
     Thus, if it is true that the data from the Five Nation Study painted a rosy picture of Americans’ attitudes about government (see Bennett 2001:54-56; Natchez 1985:125), one cannot attribute this just to the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts.
The 1960 ANES
     A final opportunity to assess “the greatest generation’s” greatness comes from the 1960 American National Election Study. By 1960, the final year of “the American High” (O’Neill 1986), the average age of the Pre-New Dealers was 64 years, while the mean age of New Dealers was 45 years, the average age of the World War II birth cohort was 35 years, and the mean age of the Cold Warriors had risen to 27 years. 1960 was 15 years after the end of World War II, and a last opportunity to assess the New Dealers’ and World War II cohort’s “civic virtue” before both cohorts entered middle-age.
     Again, the analyses focused on the same variables as those of the 1952 and 1956 ANES. The only differences in the 1960 ANES was the coding of the campaign-related media exposure variables. Otherwise, all variables are the same as before.  The 1960 ANES reinforces the patterns observed in 1952 and 1956. Once again, with few exceptions, the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts do not stand out from birth cohorts on either side.
     One thing is interesting, however. In 1960, among the New Dealers and World War II cohorts, the point-biserial correlation between education and reported turnout was rpb = .246. (The point-biserial correlation coefficient is appropriate when a dichotomous variable, coded 0 and 1, is correlated with a polychotomous variable.) Among the next birth cohort (the Cold Warriors), the point-biserial correlation between education and reported turnout was rpb = .460. (One sees a similar, albeit somewhat muted, pattern in 1956, but not in 1952.) If we restrict attention just to those who served in the military during World War II, the point-biserial correlation for the relationship between educational attainment and reported turnout in 1960 was rpb = .181. Among members of the New Dealers and World War II birth cohorts who did not serve in the military during World War II, the point-biserial correlation between reported turnout and educational attainment was rpb = .243. Could we be seeing the impact of the G.I. Bill, or did the experiences of the Great Depression and World War II have an impact on the New Dealers and World War II birth cohorts, which younger persons, such as the Cold Warriors, did not experience? Unfortunately, the 1960 ANES data do not permit resolution of this quandary.
      There are, however, a couple points which the 1960 ANES permits one to explore that were not possible with the 1952 and 1956 ANES. In 1960, for example, the ANES plumbed general interest in politics, although the questions were different from those asked in 1964 and especially in 1968 and thereafter (see Bennett 1986). On the post-election wave of the 1960 ANES, the general interest question asked respondents how closely they followed political events. In that year, 23 percent of the Pre-New Dealers said they followed political events “very closely,” as did 19 percent of the New Dealers, 21 percent of the World War II birth cohort, and 17 percent of the Cold Warriors.
      The 1960 ANES also plumbed political information, which neither the 1952 nor 1956 ANES had done; paucity of political information items on early ANES crimped analyses of Americans’ belief systems (Converse 2000). In 1960, the ANES asked respondents if they knew which political party had a majority in Congress before the elections. Two-thirds of the Pre-New Dealers (66 percent) knew the Democrats had a majority in Congress before the voting, as did 67 percent of the New Dealers, 69 percent of the World War II birth cohort, and 60 percent of the Cold Warriors. A slightly more demanding question asked if respondents knew which party held a majority in Congress after the voting. About half the Pre-New Dealers (49 percent) answered “the Democrats,” as did 58 percent of the New Dealers, 63 percent of the World War II birth cohort, and 54 percent of the Cold Warriors. In 1960, at least, one would be hard-pressed to argue that the two “greatest generation” birth cohorts were more politically knowledgeable than were persons born immediately before and after them.¹⁰
A Look at World War II Veterans
      The 1960 ANES permits a more finely-grained analysis. Recall that respondents were asked if they had served in the military and, if so, when.¹¹ One hundred and forty-five cases reported serving during World War II. Ninety-three percent of these individuals were from the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts. The average age of the World War II veterans in 1960 was 41 years. Ninety-two percent of these veterans were men.

     Table 3 depicts civic virtue among World War II veterans in 1960. Granted, this is 15years after the war ended, and veterans were in their “prime” when it comes to political engagement (Miller and Shanks 1996). Nevertheless, it is possible to compare World War II veterans’ political engagement and knowledge to all members of the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts.
     For the most part, Table 3 shows that military service during World War II is associated with greater political engagement. World War II veterans were more politically attentive, interested in the campaigns, likely to report voting in 1960, attentive to media coverage of the campaign, and politically knowledgeable than comparably aged individuals who had not seen service in World War II. Veterans were also more likely to have a high sense of citizen duty and to perceive public officials as responsive to people like themselves. Veterans were slightly more likely to report they tried to influence another person’s vote and to say they gave money to a candidate or party. On the other hand, World War II veterans were not more likely to have attended a campaign rally, to have worked for a candidate or party, or to belong to a political organization.
     Fairness dictates a look at male members of the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts who did not serve in the military during the war. The 1960 ANES shows they are less politically interested, less attentive to the campaign, less likely to report voting, less likely to follow the campaign in the mass media, less knowledgeable, and slightly less likely to opine that public officials are responsive to people like themselves. On the other hand, male members of the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts who did not serve in the military during the war are just as likely as World War II veterans to have a very high sense of civic duty and to engage in campaign activities. Still, wartime service does appear to have generally contributed to men’s political engagement. In this sense, then, arguments by Tom Brokaw, Tim Russert, and Robert Putnam appear to be buttressed.
     It would be nice if earlier ANES had asked all respondents about service in the military, so we could get some purchase on veterans’ political engagement and knowledge when they were younger. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Thus, for now at least, we must regard the 1960 data as suggestive, but not definitive.
Conclusion
      Students of American politics today frequently hold up “the greatest generation” as exemplars of “civic virtue,” while simultaneously subjecting members of Generation X and the DotNets, to scorn.
 The 1952, 1956, 1958, and 1960 American National Election Studies, however, do not show that the greatest generation stood out from persons born just before or after them in terms of civic virtue. When the members of the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts were considerably younger than they are today, they were much like persons born before 1921 and those born after 1930, whether the topic be political attentiveness and participation or exposure to the news media for campaign information. It is also doubtful, based on the 1960 ANES, that members of “the greatest generation” were more politically interested and knowledgeable than members of birth cohorts just before and after them.
     Still, the 1960 ANES does suggest that service in the military during World War II seems to have enhanced political engagement. Unfortunately, the data to buttress this claim come after a decade-and-a-half had transpired since World War II ended, and must be regarded as suggestive.
     The goal has not been to denigrate the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts. It would not be possible, or desirable, to discount their individual and collective accomplishments between 1930 and 1945. Nevertheless, data between 1952 and 1960 do not mark them as exceptionally virtuous, at least insofar as political attentiveness, engagement, and awareness are concerned.
     Military service during World War II may explain at least a portion of the greater political engagement we see today among members of the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts. The 2004 ANES found, for example, that three-quarters of the New Dealers and World War II birth cohorts reported voting in that election, compared to slightly over three-fifths of the DotNets.
     We may be seeing generational differences in recent data. It is also possible that American political culture has changed, and that patterns manifested by younger birth cohorts may be more common in the future, especially as the New Dealers and World War II birth cohorts depart the electorate.
     Had it been found that “the greatest generation” was always “great,” doubts would be raised about attempts—be they service learning or civic education—to overcome or at least reduce the “democratic deficit” manifest by contemporary youthful birth cohorts. As it stands, the issue of youthful disengagement from virtually all things political seems once again pertinent (however, see Dalton 2006; Zukin et al. 2006). One need not endorse programs extolling service learning to believe that youthful disengagement from public affairs ought to, and can be, confronted. Can some means be found to make today’s seeming “slackers” tomorrow’s “greatest generation”? Should we take to heart suggestions that military service, or some sort of national service, would be a palliative for youthful disengagement from public affairs?
     World War II was the last time large portions of the American public saw military service in a victorious cause. Korea and Vietnam were not victorious wars. Grenada and even “Operation Desert Storm” did not involve large segments of the populace. President Bush’s response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 amounted to “go shopping and hug your kids,” not exactly a call to greatness. “The greatest generation’s” advantage over later birth cohorts, in terms of civic virtue, appears to stem from a significant proportion of their members’ military service in “the good war.” If that be true, there may be severe limits on what educators can do with their current charges.

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1. Even though they were younger than the average G.I., the typical sailor (mean age = 23) and marine (average age = 22) was older than the average military person from Vietnam (Kennett 1997:22; see also O’Neill 1993:321). Not all men in World War II were older, of course, and some who served in Vietnam were over 25. Audie Murphy (2002), possibly World War II’s most decorated soldier, tried to enlist just after Pearl Harbor when he was 17; he was accepted by the Army, but not the Marines, after his 18th birthday. Eugene Sledge, who wrote what may have been the best memoir of World War II combat (1990; see Ambrose 2002:108), was 19 when he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1942. Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers (1992) included some teenagers. The average age of the Iwo Jima flag raisers, who are the subjects of Flags of Our Fathers (Bradley, with Powers 2000), was 21+ years. 2nd Lt. Jim Craig was slightly less than three months shy of his 22nd birthday when he landed on Iwo Jima in February, 1945 (Shively 2006). Several of the “boys of Point Du Hoc” were in their late teens or early twenties (Brinkley 2005), as were some of the Army Rangers who rescued POWs in the Philippines (Breuer 2002; Sides 2001). World War II pilots tended to be very young. Samuel Hynes (2003), for example, a dive-bomber pilot during the last two years of World War II, was born in 1924, as was George Herbert Walker Bush, another dive-bomber pilot. Gregory Boyington, was 30—which is why he was called “Pappy” or “Gramps”—but most of the “Black Sheep” Squadron (VMF-214) were in their early twenties (Gamble 1998; Walton 1986). At least in the early years of Vietnam, there were some men who had been in World War II and Korea (see, e.g., Moore and Galloway 1992). Once the “lifers” removed themselves, however, the Vietnam-era combat soldier, sailor, or marine was very young (MSN Encarta 2006).
2. American National Election Studies are conducted by the University of Michigan’s Center for Political Studies, and the data are released by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. Data from Stouffer’s study were gathered by the Gallup Organization, and were made available by the I.C.P.S.R. The American data for the “Five Nation” Study were gathered by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, and the data were released by the I.C.P.S.R. I am responsible for all analyses and interpretations. I begin with the 1952 ANES because this was the first year a sufficient number of cases were interviewed to permit extended analyses.
3. As scholars have known for a long time, increased education correlates with higher rates of political engagement (Converse 1972; Milbrath and Goel 1977).
4. Consider, for example, changes in birth cohorts’ exposure to formal schooling. The 1952 American National Election Study found that 28 percent of the New Deal and World War II birth cohorts were grade schoolers, 23 percent had some high school, 32 percent were high school graduates, ten percent had some college experience, and seven percent were college graduates. The Pew Research Center’s April, 2006 “News Interest” poll, among the most recent of the Center’s data-sets available for secondary analysis, found that 13 percent of New Dealers and the World War II birth cohort had not completed high school, 41 percent had graduated from high school, 24 percent had some college, and 22 percent were college graduates. (The Pew Center’s data were released to me. I wish to thank Director Andrew Kohut, Director of Survey Research Scott Keeter, and Project Director Nilanthi Samaranayake. I am responsible for all analyses and interpretations.) One ought not attribute all the differences to differential death rates, but the two sets of figures illustrate the point that birth cohorts experience different death rates with time’s passage.
5. Let us stay with educational attainment. Note 3 specified the New Dealers and World War II birth cohorts’ reported levels of educational attainment in April, 2006. The Pew Research Center’s April, 2006 “News Interest” poll found that 29 percent of Generation-X and the DotNets had some college experience, 23 percent had the baccalaureate degree, and 11 percent had received advanced college/university training. Only 8 percent had not graduated from high school, and 29 percent were high school graduates. Since a large slice of the DotNets were still in school, their levels of formal schooling will increase in the future. In short, when one compares the New Dealers and the World War II birth cohort to Generation X and the DotNets, one has to consider these cohorts’ differing levels of formal schooling.
6. There was no general political interest variable on the 1952 and 1956 ANES. Hence, attention to the political campaigns will have to do.
7. Perceptions of governmental responsiveness were tapped by two external political efficacy variables, “I don’t think public officials care much what people like me think,” and “People like me don’t have any say about what the government does” (see Campbell, Gurin, and Miller 1954:187-94). Since the two items in 1952 were in the “agree-disagree” format, coded 0 and 1, the two-item scale ranged from 0 to 2. The two-item scale has a Kuder-Richardson KR-20 coefficient of .58. When all items in a scale are dichotomous, KR-20 is equivalent to coefficient alpha (Zeller and Carmines 1980:58-59).
8. In 1952, four items, all dichotomies, comprised the Sense of Citizen Duty Scale: “It isn’t so important to vote when you know your party doesn’t have a chance to win,” “A good many local elections aren’t important enough to bother with,” “So many other people vote in the national elections that it doesn’t matter much to me whether I vote or not,” and “If a person’s doesn’t care how an election comes out he shouldn’t vote in it” (see Campbell, Gurin, and Miller 1954:194-99). The four-item scale has a KR-20 coefficient of .59.
9. There were no general media exposure variables on the 1952 ANES. Hence , it was necessary to look at reports of following the campaigns through television, daily newspapers, radio, and magazines.
10. Critics of “civics books” questions argue that items such as these are poor tests of political information. What they over-look, as Converse (1975) notes, is that performance on items such as these resonates with performance on other types of political information queries.
11. The 1952 ANES also asked these questions, but only on Form A. As a result, only six cases reported military service during World War II.