SGER: Collective Memories Over The Life Course

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SES-0206472PI(s): Howard Schuman University of Michigan, Ann ArborThe Small Grant for Exploratory Research will support the inclusion of key questions in December 2001 and January 2002 surveys done by the Survey Research Center Monthly at the University of Michigan. Surveys are administered each month to 300 new respondents and reinterviews are completed with 200 respondents who participated in surveys six months earlier (June and July 2002 surveys). This project builds on a recently completed study by adding post-September 11 data in order to assess the effects of the terrorist attacks on American collective memory. The previous project, SES-0001844, " Collective Memory: Persistence and Change Over Fifteen Years," examined American collective memories by replicating in 2000 a study completed in 1985. The primary hypothesis explored in this research 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. That is, past events and changes that people of all ages recall as especially important tend to be those that occurred during their adolescence or young adulthood. Open-ended questions were used to obtain information about significant events and responses were coded into event categories (e.g., World War II, the 1973 Kennedy assassination, Vietnam War, the Moon landing, Iran hostages). Results were analyzed to determine the extent to which memories of public events that were first discovered in 1985 persisted in 2000.These new data will allow the PI to gauge the impact of the terrorist attacks, the subsequent economic impact, and the threat of anthrax and other omens of weapons of mass destruction on respondents answers to questions about events they consider important post-September 11th. These will be compared to responses collected in June and July 2001.