tle 444 AUTHOR TITLE INSTITUTION SPONS AGENCY BUREAU NO PUB DATE

With survey data from college and noncollege youth and their parents collected in the spring of 1969 for CBS News by Daniel Yankelovich Inc., this investigation evaluates existing theories of the youthful protest involvement of the 1960s. The analysis shows that youthful alienation, critical perspectives on society, and rejection of traditional values, contribute to the protest behavior of youth, and that these personal dispositions are, in turn, encouraged by various factors in the social backgrounds, family environments, and educational contexts of young people. These findings are generally consistent with theories that hold that the social backgrounds and family experiences of young people predispose them toward protest involvement. However, the analysis also reveals that the social class backgrounds of youth and academic standing of the colleges and universities they attend strongly encourage protest activity independently of personal dispositions, such as youthful alienation, social criticism, and traditional values. The sizable independent contributions of family SES and school quality lead to alternative interpretations of the protest movement in terms of the "dynamics of disorderly politics " and the "political incorporation of the student status, " and to suggestions for further analyses of these data. (Author)-30;WVt;::4"''' BEST fliVititt