| Abstrakt: |
This article focuses on political consciousness and its implications in American society. The main drift of American society can be found in attitudinal surveys to the state of American political consciousness. Possibly the most informative of recent surveys is the Daniel Yankelovich 1969-73 study of American youth which showed that working class young people in the U.S. are taking on many of attitudes on sex, politics, patriotism, religion, the family, morals and life-style that marked college student thinking in sixties. The result is that young workers are becoming increasingly dissatisfied and frustrated. The new values surfaced on the American scene in the form of a counter-culture have spread among American youth. Although a new pragmatism now characterizes the campus, students still talk of wanting careers that are personally satisfying and socially meaningful as well as financially rewarding. Politically, college students are ambivalent. Considerably fewer students than in the 1960s believe that changing society is an important personal value and the percentage of students who believe that America is a sick society declined from 45 percent to 35 percent from 1971 to 1973. The non-college youth are the most disaffected and disillusioned of today's generation of young adults and their efforts to satisfy their new values and expectations are unlikely to meet with success on grounds that there does not appear to be a good fit between what these young people want and what society has to offer. |
Full text from SpringerLink