Kinship and Cohort in an Aging Society: From Generation to Generation

6. Who’s Talking about My Generation?

chapter six Who’s Talking about My Generation? Duane F. Alwin The problem of generations, from mankind’s earliest writings down to contemporary mass media accounts, involves the tension between continuity and change among age groups in the succession of social order. Vern Bengtson (1989, p. 48) Following one of the key themes of Vern Bengtson’s long scholarly career, this chapter considers the theoretical concept of “generation” as it has been used in the social and behavioral sciences (see Bengtson, 1989). A lot has been written using the concept(s) of generations, and nearly everyone agrees that it is, or they are, critical for linking the individual and society. What is significant, however, is that there is no single meaning of the term. Because of this, Kertzer (1983, p. 135) stated that although “the concept of generation is important to future [social science] research . . . progress can only be made if an acceptable definition of generation is employed and other usages are abandoned (emphasis added).” Consistent with this position, many scholars suggest restricting the word’s meaning or doing away with the concept altogether (e.g. Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003). I argue, along with Bengtson (1989), that a broader assessment of the concept of generation is desirable. The term has several legitimate scientific meanings, and there is not one single correct meaning but rather at least three legitimate uses of the concept in research on human development. These meanings are distinct from one another, but they are united, not only by a common terminology but by the fact that many different factors involving gen- 134 Of Generations and Cohorts erational influences converge upon the developing individual. That the same term is used in different ways does not render any one of these uses inadequate or imprecise. Taking a broad perspective, in this chapter I focus on the nature of generational accounts appearing both in the social science scholarly literature and also the writings of journalists and others. I consider the ways in which the concept is used, some of the convergences across perspectives, and the utility of the concept for present-day research on human development that can ultimately lead to a more profound understanding of the linkage between the individual and society. To illustrate the distinctions among these various “generational” concepts and how all three are important to studying human development, I present data from our well-known Bennington longitudinal study and the National Election Study of 1984, both dealing with political beliefs and attitudes (see Alwin, Cohen, & Newcomb, 1991). Via an analysis of these data, I show how an understanding of the development of political beliefs and attitudes can be informed by all three types of generational concepts, which are (1) the influence of socialization of young people by prior generations, a type of lineage effect as described by Bengtson (1989); (2) a generational effect due to historical location; and (3) generations (or what I have elsewhere called “big G” Generations , see Alwin & McCammon, 2003) as historical participation. Following this discussion, I briefly examine some examples of how the concept is used in public discourse by journalistic narratives about age differences in society and how these treatments compare to the generational logics employed by social scientists. Logics of Generations In this section I examine the richness of the concept of generation with respect to its historical roots and the classical writings on the subject. Through my research, I have uncovered three distinct concepts of generation in the sense that each deals with a unique set of differences and a different logic for the role of generational influences—(1) generations as positions in family lineages , (2) generations as birth cohorts or historical locations, and (3) generations as historical participation—and all are useful (see also Alwin & McCammon , 2003, 2007). Unfortunately, there is a great deal of confusion about the adequacy of these concepts, due to a failure to appreciate their differences and the key underlying theoretical principles governing their relevance to human development. Who’s Talking about My Generation? 135 I begin with a discussion of the distinctiveness of the phenomena to which these three different concepts of generation apply—in one case to families, in another to the historical location of birth cohorts, and in the third to social movements or organizations in which participation and identification is involved . These three critical levels of analysis—families, cohorts, and...