The Millenial Pitfall
By: Kevin Guidry
Kevin Guidry explains the dangers of generational stereotyping and its impact for student affairs practitioners.
Millenials: “The Digital Generation”
At professional conferences, I am drawn to many of the programs and conversations that focus on the current crop of traditional undergraduate students by making sweeping characterizations and applying familiar labels: Millennials, The Digital Generation, etc. I loathe those discussions but year after year, conference after conference, I sit in on them and cringe as we stereotype our students. As student affairs professionals, we undermine our credibility and moral authority by uncritically accepting and these stereotypes.
There are many aspects of these characterizations to which I object. I am greatly concerned by the commercial interests that have built, promoted, and sustained many of these characterizations. I am also concerned by the quality of some research underlying these characterizations and the contradictory conclusions reached in these different bodies of research. Eric Hoover explored both of these issues in an excellent article in the October 11, 2009, issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education so we do not have to do so here.
More than anything, I am concerned about how easily student affairs professionals have bought into these characterizations. My concerns are driven only by my own experiences and observations; I know of no empirical research measuring how deeply these ideas have penetrated our speech and practices. But I am continually saddened by how quickly we – we who know the power and pitfalls of stereotyping – embrace these contradictory generalizations that purport to describe our diverse student bodies. Even discussions that remain relatively positive often ignore or downplay the different backgrounds, experiences, and concerns of our students.
Fact or Fiction?
The challenge for us is to understand changes in our student bodies in the proper context. When someone makes generalizations about our students, we must test those claims against empirical and not anecdotal evidence. Are those claims based on adequate evidence? Who is making the claim and why? What assumptions underlie the claims? Are they consistent with other available evidence? Do they advance our understanding and practice or do they instead stereotype students with generalizations that could be applied to any group of persons? Are they (social) science or pseudoscience more akin to astrology?
Robert Putnam’s (2000) Bowling Alone is an excellent example of a set of claims concerning generational change based on carefully analyzed, sufficient, and well-described and contextualized evidence. In that book, Putnam describes the decline of civic participation in American society in the second half of the 20th century. He grounds his claims by rooting them in the sociological concepts of bridging and bonding social capital, ideas that have proved useful well beyond Putnam’s book and his specific claims. Bowling Alone lacks the breathlessness and marketing muscle of many other books that analyze generational change and perhaps those, too, might be indicators of its value as good research.
Future Directions
I do not claim the title of “social justice educator;” I am not even an active member of this Commission. But I recognize that the responsibility for understanding and embracing social justice is one we all share. And we can not take the easy road, even when that road is well-travelled and well-funded. Just as we teach our students, we can not and should not rely on stereotypes and caricatures. It is our responsibility to see past the labels imposed by broader society and view generalizations with healthy skepticism, especially when those labels are put forth by well-moneyed interests and embraced with fervor by others seeking easy answers.
References:
Hoover, E. (2009, October 11). The millennial muddle: How stereotyping students became a thriving industry and a bundle of contradictions. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/The-Millennial-Muddle-How/48772/
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling along: The collapse and revival of American community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.
Kevin Guidry is a PhD student in the Higher Education Student Affairs program at Indiana Bloomington concentrating on Social Informatics.
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