d Mickelson 1993).The class of 2001 recently set a new record for political apathy among college freshmen: only 27 percent said that keeping up with politics was an important priority for them, as opposed to 58 percent of the class of 1970, with whom some of our parents attended college.Of course, the class of 2001 has not seen government encroach on their lives as it did on the lives of their parents—through the Vietnam War and the draft. Nor has any policy affected them as directly as Medicare has affected their grandparents. It is noteworthy that senior citizens are actually voting at a higher rate today than when Medicare was first starting up. A salient factor in analyzing the shifts of education and motivation is the drop in the value of education. Ray and Mickleson (1993) found that often high school dropouts make more money than those who have completed high school, that, depressing as it may seem “possibly non-college bound students do make the connection between a high school diploma and job opportunities and what they frequently observe fails to encourage them to be disciplined or motivated in school or at work”(11). These examples are only a few among many that could be cited. Another question would be: what are the connections between Gen Xers individualism and lack of social integration and the huge amounts of individual responsibility placed on them at a young age as demographic patters shift and create latch-key children, more and more children of divorced parents, and more emphasis on beginning work at a younger age? These transformations of family structure, the economy and education have transformed social structure but also have very personal effects on individual’s quality of life, social and political beliefs and career opportunities and personal identity. Are Gen Xers really as selfish and self centered as many of the previous generations see us as? Or could Gen Xers just be giving up on...
