Collective Memory: Persistence and Change Over Fifteen Years

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Schuman, HowardSES-0001844The primary purpose of this research is to determine the extent to which cohort effects of a "critical period" on memories for public events that were first discovered in a U.S. national sample in 1985 (in a NSF funded study) persist fifteen years later in 2000, thus helping to demarcate "generations" (e.g., a "Vietnam generation"). The focus is particularly on cohorts available in both 1985 and 2000, but the public memories of cohorts that have entered adulthood (age 18) since 1985 are also of importance. The major hypothesis is that each generation receives a distinctive imprint from the major political and social events that occur during its youth and the effects of this imprint persist throughout the life course. A national cross-section telephone survey was used in 1985 and will also be used in 2000. Open-ended questions (e.g., Would you mention one or two such events or changes that seem to you to have been especially important?) will be used to obtain information on memories. Interviews will be conducted with a total sample of approximately 3500 Americans 18 years of age or over as part of the regular University of Michigan Survey Research Center Monthly Survey. The research is part of a larger program that has also studied memories of public events in five other countries (Germany, Israel, Japan, Lithuania, and Russia), that includes companion work on knowledge of past events, and that considers the effects of memories of the past on attitudes toward new issues arising in the present.