The Sociology of Generations Revisited: Conceptual, Theoretical and Methodological Issues

• In Event: 209 - Theory Section Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Political Sociology

Abstract

At various points in its history, the discipline of Sociology has made overtures toward the development of a generational perspective, or a Sociology of Generations (e.g., Mannheim 1952; Eisenstadt 1956; Edmunds and Turner 2002). Essentially, this is a viewpoint which conceptualizes generational cohorts as macro-sociological entities having the capability to exert considerable change upon society, and to contextualize other changes and social conditions. While some of these early formative attempts have been intellectually exciting and have yielded provocative findings relating to specific generational cohorts, such as the World War II and Baby Boom generations, for whatever reason, this perspective has not gained the necessary traction to be regarded as one of the most important theoretical frameworks within the discipline. It is the purpose of this paper to remedy this situation by (a) briefly charting out the developmental beginnings of this nascent generational perspective in Sociology, (b) identifying its basic assumptions and fundamental concepts, (c) exploring some of the most important conceptual and methodological questions raised by the application of such an approach, and (e) suggesting several fruitful applications of such a perspective in contemporary Sociology. In doing so, our underlying objective here is to introduce this generational perspective to those sociologists who may be unaware of or unfamiliar with this approach to the study of society, and to make the case that there is much valuable work that can be done using this perspective as one’s theoretical foundation.

Authors

• Keith Farrington, Whitman College

• Emma Snyder, Whitman College