Generations, Aging, and Social Stratification: on the Development of Generational Units1

Abstract

A crucial but underdeveloped aspect of generational analysis concerns the importance of class groupings on the development of generation‐based issues, and the necessity of examining the way in which superordinate and subordinate class groupings mediate the experience of age‐cohort membership. If one distinguishes the demographic (or cohort) perspective on generations from that which focuses on smaller age‐based groupings that provide specific impetus for social change (generation units), one can explore the antecedents of generation unit formation among upper‐middle class youth of the past decade, and examine the role of social and technological innovation in the creation of alternative generational styles. Four types of generational units among youth are delineated—radicalism, freakism, communalism, and revivalism—and the possibility of generational units among the elderly is discussed.

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