Bloustein School students ponder generational differences Archived article from May 10, 2004   Cliff Zukin, director of the Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll, second from right, led a project to measure generational differences in opinions among New Jerseyans. Helping him were, from left, Allison Kopicki and Rob Suls, both graduate research assistants, and Patrick Murray, associate director of the poll. Photo by Nick Romanenko For a wide-ranging survey on generational differences across New Jersey, the graduate students in Professor Cliff Zukin’s survey research class pondered such unconventional topics as ESP and the frequency of family dinners. After tabulating and analyzing the responses from four generational groups, the students will get the chance to present their findings to a wide audience. The Star-Ledger of Newark is publishing a series of articles based on the poll. The series, called “NJ Generations,” is scheduled to run this month or in early June. “We hope to paint a picture of the quality of life in New Jersey and also to suggest how things will change in the state over the next 10 years,” said Zukin, director of the Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll and a professor of public policy at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. “For example, there’s so much support for gay marriage among the two younger generations. My sense is there will be pressure for the state to move in that direction over the next 10 years.” The Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll is highly regarded. New Jersey’s largest daily newspaper and the Eagleton Institute of Politics have coordinated on regular public interest surveys since 1983. Typically, the polls are quick hits on hot topics in the news. Recent polls asked questions about alcohol, municipal regionalization, the public’s perception of Gov. James E. McGreevey and “who’s the boss” of New Jersey (Bruce Springsteen edged out McGreevey by seven percentage points). This time, however, Zukin wanted to do something with a broader scope that the Star-Ledger could examine over time in a series. He also wanted to engage his survey research class in a real-life project rather than subject them to monotonous lectures. “They’ve been very aggressive,” Zukin said. “It’s been a great socialization for their work life. It really gets them used to having deadlines that matter.” After discussions, editors at the Star-Ledger and Eagleton came up with the generations idea and outlined four groups: DotNets (ages 18 to 27), Generation X (ages 28 to 39), Baby Boomers (ages 40 to 57), and Matures (age 58 and over). Then the class got to the task of brainstorming topics and writing good questions. “I think the students really had different opinions about what they wanted to do. They would come up with topics and it was hard initially to put them into categories,” Zukin said. The class eventually identified seven key topics: politics and government, sex and relationships, race and immigration, money and personal finance, work life, family and leisure time, and religion and spirituality. Each topic has narrower objectives. For example, politics and government focuses on political knowledge, election participation and media awareness. Questions on people’s beliefs in extrasensory perception and the devil fall under religion and spirituality. Under work life, the researchers looked at whether people liked their bosses, how they are treated at work and how jobs shape people’s identities. In examining leisure time, interviewers asked people how often they ate dinner with their families while growing up. The results alone are interesting enough, but Zukin said the key to the survey is looking at generational gaps or bridges. Since the students in Zukin’s class are mostly DotNets and Generation Xers, they were a bit surprised, and dismayed, at one of the poll’s key findings.“The last two political generations (DotNets and Generation X) are very disengaged, so even while they have different values, it may not translate into demands on the political system,” Zukin said. That’s not just because these generations are young, Zukin said. Boomers have been voting, petitioning and campaigning from the 1960s on, and Zukin predicts that even as younger generations age, they will not match their parents in that area. But younger people are participating just as much as their elders in civic activities, according to a national survey Zukin completed last year. He is writing a book on that poll, which indicates that younger people are just as likely as Boomers and Matures to volunteer, organize and raise funds for causes they care about. “The youngest two generations are doing very well in terms of civic engagement but are doing far less well in terms of political engagement,” Zukin said. “Democracy depends on informed citizens. This becomes very troubling and we are seeing the same trend in New Jersey.” In mid-April, the 1,600-member American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) elected Zukin its vice president and president-elect. Zukin will serve as vice president until May 2005 and then take over as president. In addition to hosting an annual conference, training researchers and publishing the influential journal Public Opinion Quarterly, AAPOR is a sort of police force for pollsters. It serves the interests of journalists and the public by rooting out what Zukin called “bogus polls” — such as Web-based and call-in polls with no scientific validity.

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