Alwin, Cohen, and Newcomb. (1991) Political Attitudes over the Lifespan: The Bennington Women after Fifty Year

Alwin, Cohen, and Newcomb. (1991). Political Attitudes over the Lifespan: The Bennington Women after Fifty Years. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Chapter 2: Newcomb’s Bennington Studies: The Impressionable Years

Bennington College: Women’s college in rural Vermont with an emphasis on personal growth and freedom. Also set to extend advanced educational skills to women. “experimental”
Bennington as a reference group: reference groups are groups through which people are introduced to new values and norms of an environment. Here the main value of interest is independence from parents and personal status in the (college) community. Also related to becoming more progressive and “liberated”
The women: mostly came from upper-class, conservative families. Fairly isolated, especially from public issues. Entered college between 1932 and 1938. all students asked to participate who were at the college between 1935-1938.
Change in Progressivism:

-progressivism/liberal outlook measured with PEP score

-college became more liberal in the aggregate, especially domestic issues

-aging/development effect: regardless of year of entry, women became more liberal as they went through school.

-some problem with selection/mortality: results could be due to more conservative women dropping out of the school/study. Newcomb has rejected these as not likely to have confounded the results

-“A gradual process of political divergence from parents” over time-Newcomb, 1943. He did not actually test this as a bivariate relationship, but subsequent analysis roughly supports this for those women who came from conservative families (60% stayed Republican with conservative parents while 90% stayed liberal from liberal families.)

-some evidence of persistence of liberal attitudes after leaving Bennington.

-slight divergence over time between literature/social sciences and science/music in PEP scores, but this does not explain overall aggregate changes.

-liberal students more concerned with “theory and harmony” while conservatives more likely to be interested in economics and politics/power. (pg 49)
Informational Environment:

-progressive ideas spread throughout community, not just in relevant courses ie social sciences.

Why?- closely integrated community and homogenous non-conservative faculty.

-uniform experience across curriculum

-less conservative students were more likely to be leaders and have closer friendships. Women rated more liberal classmates as closer friends.

**I think this article did not belong in the Life cycle week. Maybe the events week or the “what is learned when” week. Maybe even in generations. But it only briefly talks about persistence or life-long effects. The chapter even says that it will talk more about the long-term effects in a later chapter. ??**