Accounting for the Decreasing Willingness of U.S. High School Seniors to Protest, 1976–2015

Abstract

Protest waves ebb and flow in contemporary America. Willingness to protest is a key precursor to a fledgling citizen’s potential for eventually being mobilized to participate in a public demonstration. Here, we explore trends in high school seniors’ willingness to protest from 1976 through 2015, employing annual data from the Monitoring the Future survey. After modest increases in willingness to protest that occurred for cohorts during the early-1990s, willingness to protest has steadily decreased for subsequent cohorts. We found that political interest, prior political experiences, and social engagement have a significant impact on time-series and cross-sectional variations in the willingness to protest for all cohorts. We address the larger implications of our research findings for theories of political participation and social movements.

Generational Variation in Young Adults’ Attitudes toward Legal Abortion: Contextualizing the Role of Religion

“…Furthermore, they are the most educated generation to date, but also face a labor market that has remained precarious throughout their lives (Milkman 2017). Even so, they are the least likely generation to engage in political protest in an organized manner (Kim and McCarthy 2018).…”

Changing routine activities and the decline of youth crime: A repeated cross‐sectional analysis of self‐reported delinquency in Sweden, 1999–2017*

“…Using data from the Monitoring the Future study, Twenge and Park (2019, cf. Kim & McCarthy, 2018) found a marked decrease of time adolescents have been going out without their parents since 1996 for eighth and tenth graders and since 2002 for twelfth graders in the United States. Other out‐of‐home activities as paid work, dating, and getting a drivers’ license also decreased.…”

Measuring and Analyzing Protest Potential From a Survey Data Recycling Framework

“…This method gives specific weights to each of past participation and protest willingness after combining the two response categories. Some studies gave an equal weight to protest participation with protest willingness (e.g., Crozat, 1998;Jennings et al, 1989;Kim & McCarthy, 2018). This method assumes that those who have previously participated in protests are willing to engage in future protests, but the assumption has never been validated.…”