Article 13: Research on Youth in an age of Complexity: The Rockefeller Youth Task Force and Daniel Yankelovich, 1965-1975

The period between 1965 and 1975 encompasses important events associated with the peak of the youth movement in the 1960s and its demise in the 1970s. The period was an “age of complexity” according to Daniel Yankelovich (1974), a social scientist hired by John D. Rockefeller 3rd’s Youth Task Force to study the wave of protests that Rockefeller felt threatened the nation’s future as well as his family’s interests in entrepreneurial capitalism and philanthropy. Student protests began as issues of civil rights and democratic participation on college campuses reframed decades old civil rights campaigns against entrenched injustices based on income, power, and fundamental socio-economic disparities grounded in poverty, segregation, and persistent discrimination against minorities including African Americans, Hispanics, Migrant Workers, American Indians, and women. Another major source of discontent was the Vietnam War and draft, which expanded in the 1960s. In turn anti-war protests increased and became catalysts for progressively violent rebellions and clashes with authorities on college campuses. New perspectives on sexuality, love, and preferred life style reflected a youth culture that swept the nation to the alarm of many representatives of the older generation. The new morality also reflected a diminished adherence to the traditional values of the Protestant Ethic that equated economic status and hard work with success. Radical groups questioned the basic tenants of capitalism as a partner in democratic governance for equity and social justice.