THE CHANGING VALUES ON CAMPUS
POLITICAL AND PERSONAL ATTITUDES OF TODAY'S COLLEGE STUDENTS
(New York: Washington Square Press, 1973)

by Daniel Yankelovich

This book is offered as a contribution to public understanding of the opinions, attitudes, and general mood of American college youth. It tells much about what young people think of the society they live in. It is especially valuable because the testimony comes from college youth itself. One might say that the real authors of this book are the 1,244 students who gave the answers recorded here.

The JDR 3rd Fund believes that genuine communication between young people and the Establishment is essential for our society. We have felt that communication would be aided by a dispassionate presentation of the actual opinions of college students about some of the key issues of our time. We recognize, of course, that dialogue is not an end in itself, but it may be a means by which effective cooperation can come to pass. An understanding of what youth thinks about the questions of morals, politics, and values dealt with in this survey can be an important step toward meaningful dialogue. That, in turn, can lead to effective cooperative action, with important benefits for the participants as well as for society in general.

The Fund was fortunate in being able to engage the services of Daniel Yankelovich, Inc., to carry out this project in the late spring of 1971, and in having Mr. Yankelovich prepare the analysis of the data, as he did in the case of the previous survey, published by the JDR 3rd Fund under the title Youth and the Establishment.

In that earlier publication, as in this one, it was possible to combine the new results with data from 1968 and 1969 Yankelovich surveys carried out for Fortune and CBS News. We are grateful to both organizations for permitting use of their studies. The present book, as a result, gives us a four-year sweep of information instead of being limited to one year.

After presentation of the survey results in Parts I and II of the book, Mr. Yankelovich contributes, in Part III, the essay "The New Naturalism" with his interpretation of the long-term as well as immediate significance of the results.

Acknowledgments are due to the Task Force on Youth which formulated the basic ideas and specific plans for both the present study and its predecessor. The original Task Force included Richard W. Barrett, John E. Harr, David K. Lelewer, Daniel Yankelovich, and Paul Ylvisaker. In the fall of 1970 the Trustees of the JDR 3rd Fund authorized exploration of the youth field and assumed sponsorship of the Task Force. Besides the original Task Force members and Jerry J. Swift, who now directs the project, others who have worked on it over the longest period have included Steven Haft, Robert McG. Lilley, William Ruder, Datus C. Smith, Jr., and Paul Swift. The JDR 3rd Fund wishes to express its appreciation to Mrs. Ruth Clark, vice president of Daniel Yankelovich, Inc., for her participation in direction of the surveys and analysis of the results.

We on the Task Force on Youth owe our greatest debt to the many people we have come to know in our efforts at stimulating Youth-Establishment dialogue and cooperation. These people–young and old, longhairs and corporate executives–embody and typify the cross-generation and cross-culture collaboration necessary to the well-being of our society.

–JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 3RD