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Activists Ten Years Later: A Test of Generational Unit Continuity 1
Author(s) -
Fendrich James M.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1974.tb00729.x
Subject(s) - politics , variance (accounting) , test (biology) , unit (ring theory) , government (linguistics) , path analysis (statistics) , political activism , political science , social psychology , psychology , sociology , demographic economics , law , mathematics education , economics , statistics , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics , accounting , biology
This study focuses on the generational unit born out of the student protest movement. Three groups were selected for the study: (a) former civil rights activists involved in protest demonstrations during 1960 and 1963, (b) former students who had been involved in student government politics during that time, and (c) former students who had taken no part in institutional or noninstitutional politics. The major dependent variables are political attitudes and political behavior eight to eleven years after the student protest. Using path analysis, it was found that the level of student activism had major direct and indirect effects on political attitudes and behavior. Together with other exogenous and intervening variables, student activism accounted for 55% of the variance in political attitudes and 42% of the variance in political behavior.