Abstract
Youth Movements and Generational Politics, 19th–21st Centuries serves as a valuable resource on the study of youth movements conducted by researchers Richard and Margaret Braungart. This husband and wife team began studying youth movements in the 1960s and published research on youth activism for the next 50 years. This book is a compilation of their published research over these decades. They bring interdisciplinary expertise to the field, with a sociological, historical, and psychological perspective. The volume is organized chronologically and divided into three sections: Youth Movements and Youth Politics, Historical Generations and Political Generations, and Life-Course Politics.
The reflective nature of the preface for the volume helps to contextualize the previously published chapters even more than the introductory chapter. The Braungarts share with the reader the motivations for their research and how they have specifically contributed to the field of youth social movements. The underlying conviction expressed is that their research is significant for understanding the impetus for youth mobilization, especially in historical and developmental terms. They also believe the findings may encourage adult authorities to consider the needs of youth and provide outlets for political involvement to avoid generational conflict.
They situate their theory, methods, and definition for youth early in the first section, in the chapter on Youth and Social Movements, which is one of their earlier published articles (from 1975). Using a biosocial and life cycle understanding that focuses on a particular developmental stage, this chapter defines youth as an age range from 14 to 25 years old. Yet much of the rest of the chapter sets up their use of the Generational Unit Theory by Karl Mannheim and tends to target college-aged students for their set of propositions on youth movements.
Further refining Mannheim's theory on generations for their research over time, the Braungarts began to distinguish between historical generations and political generations. Later in their research, they included a life-course approach, noting changes in the activists they had studied earlier and exploring what creates motivations for involvement in movements at an individual level. Overall, the Braungarts recognized the need for a mixture of theoretical and methodological approaches, utilizing historical comparative data, surveys, and interviews from both their own primary research and secondary studies. The first section of the book presents the wide scope of youth movements that emerged during the 1960s and 1980s, using easy-to-navigate charts—for example, Table 7.1—and the comprehensive listing of global youth movements during the 1980s (pp. 148–53).
In the second section of the book, the research presented continues with a more international focus. A detailed explanation of their use of historical and political generations to analyze youth movements provides a baseline for the entire section. The prominence of protest from youth is viewed as connected to the specific social and political influences that generational cohorts encounter. In keeping with their approach of historical and political generations, a useful compilation of youth movements beginning in 1815 and through the 1980s for both left and right ends of the political spectrum is provided in Table 10.2 (pp. 241–50). For their own primary research, they found the surge of youth activism in the 1960s and the 1980s to be most significant for study, claiming distinct social and political pressures leading youth to protest. Although they find there are some similarities in these two time periods, they noted a rise in international protest during the 1980s.
A life-course approach is featured in the chapters within the third section of the book. The focus here becomes more on the developmental stage of youth activists. Adolescence and young adulthood are portrayed as a transitionary period and, in particular, a time of finding one's place in the social and political structure. Therefore, these chapters present research on youth as having distinct cognitive and emotional characteristics as compared to adults, which directly influences their activism. Exploring changes over the life course for the individual is also an important aspect of this approach. During the 1980s the Braungarts pursued interviews with former activists from the 1960s, specifically with left-wing leaders of Students for Democratic Society (SDS) and right-wing leaders of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). They eventually combined the psychological and developmental life-course approach with their earlier use of generations theory to provide an interdisciplinary perspective they felt to be lacking in the literature at the time of their research.
Overall, the nineteen chapters of previously published work convey not only the data collected on the movements, but also the attitudes of researchers who were attempting to find patterns for youth mobilization during those time periods. Some research may have enduring relevance to build on, and certainly it all has historical value that can be utilized for contemporary social movement researchers. The Braungarts suggest as much themselves, noting how much has changed since they began this work, while also noting that this earlier work will serve as a useful comparison for researchers.
The conclusion of this book reviews the methods used in their previous research and applies these to movements in the twenty-first century. Similarities and differences are discussed in general terms, despite the mention of new data collected and analysis performed. Several takeaways are that international movements have increased, generational conflict is still apparent, and social media is a new form that has changed movements. The Braungarts do not explore much about the influence of social media as a stated difference in historical/political generations and social movement mobilization in the twenty-first century. The younger age of protestors is noted, and Greta Thunberg's activism in high school with the movement against climate change is frequently presented as an example. The Braungarts claim that one constant in youth movements appears to be grievances and conflict with adult authorities. However, it might be argued that the use of generational unit theory may lead to a strong emphasis on generational gaps or conflict over social movement issues. It may also limit an examination of multigenerational protest, as evidenced in pro-democracy, anti-climate change, and other movements.
Although the conclusion does not add many new insights, arguably this is not the purpose of the book. The previously published chapters contain important data collection on youth movements over a significant time span from the researchers and research from secondary sources. They offer a historical, comparative, and empirical look at research on youth movements, especially from the 1960s and 1980s. Social movement researchers within the disciplines of sociology, psychology and history will especially find this volume useful. The Braungarts are to be commended for their lifelong dedication to research in the field of youth movements.