>Kind of like
>"anti-globalist" hippie kids whose parents are tax attorneys with 401K plans.
Eh? Students can only be authentic radicals if their parents are working class?
An excerpt from a paper by Richard Freeman and Kim Elliott <http://www.nber.org/~confer/2000/si2000/elliot.pdf> shows that activist kids do come from more affluent families, but their parents also tend to be more left and more supportive than most:
>To answer these questions we conducted a survey of nearly 100 USAS
>members in summer 1999. Forty-two percent of our sample classified
>themselves as leaders and 31 6 percent viewed themselves as critical
>people (31 percent) in their campus anti-sweatshop activities.
>Nearly 3/4s said they had helped initiate or participate in their
>local campus campaign. In short, this is a good sample of student
>activists. In terms of demographics, the sample is divided nearly
>evenly between men (53 percent) and women (47 percent) and is
>dominated by whites (84 percent) and non-black minorities (15
>percent). The majority of students (75 percent) are social science
>majors of some form (some joint majors), usually sociology or
>political science; 18 percent were humanities majors and the
>remaining 7 percent were science or mathematics majors.
>
>Panel A of exhibit 3 shows three important facts about the student
>activists. First, many come from relatively well-to-do families: 36
>percent report their family income as exceeding $100,000 -- more
>than twice the proportion (16 percent) of all first year college
>students with that family income; while just 8 percent report a
>family income of less than $40,000 (compared to 35 percent of first
>year college students). Second, the parents of the activists are
>more progressive on average than most Americans, and a large
>proportion are themselves activists. Third, as a result of this
>concordance of attitudes, the activist students receive considerable
>support from their parents. In fact, the proportion of parents who
>supported student activists exceeded the proportion critical of
>their activity by a considerable margin -- one greater than that for
>professors or friends of the students not involved in the
>anti-sweatshop movement. These student activists are not Lewis
>Feuer's generation rebelling against their parents. Rather, they are
>the product of a generational transmission of political attitudes
>and activity.
>
>Panel B of the exhibit shows that the students themselves have a
>history of activism. Over half were involved in activist campaigns
>in high school, and 84 percent had done activist work prior to their
>involvement with USAS. Nearly a third had been members of trade
>unions, and 9 percent had been involved in Union Summer. Asked
>whether they viewed themselves as apolitical do-gooders or as
>politically committed activists, the vast majority chose the
>political activist label. Asked about the happiness various outcomes
>would bring them, the activists rated issues regarding the
>well-being of third world workers and greater unionization in the
>United States above getting all A's in their classes.
>
>Panel C shows the self-reported allocation of student activist time
>to the anti-sweatshop campaign, relative to other extra-curricular
>activities and to their studies. The activist students are
>substantially involved in non-academic pursuits. They spend about 6
>hours a week on anti-sweatshop things, with a small number giving
>over 20 hours a week to the campaign. In addition, however, the
>activists spend some 13 hours on other extra-curricular activities,
>so that the total time spent on non-academic pursuits exceeds the
>time spent studying. Forty per cent hold jobs and work around 11
>hours per week. Nearly half say that if they were not involved in
>the anti-sweatshop movement, they would devote the time to another
>cause. The final panel of exhibit 3 shows that students see the main
>cost of activist time as lower grades, but they see little effect on
>their romantic life, and believe that their activism has increased
>their self-confidence, and communication and leadership skills.
>
>Exhibit 4 compares the attitudes of student activists with first
>year college students in the UCLA/ACE annual American Freshman
>survey. Here, we asked the activists questions from the American
>Freshman survey regarding attitudes and goals. There are three main
>differences between the activists and the average freshman. First,
>the activists are more "liberal" in their views of most issues: they
>have a more open view toward sex, are less likely to believe that
>race discrimination is a thing of the past, and are more likely to
>believe that the wealthy should pay more taxes. At the same time,
>they are more tolerant of views with which they disagree - only 38
>percent believe that colleges should prohibit racist or sexist
>speech compared to 64 percent of all freshmen. Second, the activists
>are more favorable to disobeying laws when the laws contravene their
>convictions and more likely to believe that individual actions can
>change society. Finally, the activists are markedly less interested
>in being well off financially or in raising a family than the
>freshmen and more interested in influencing political outcomes and
>becoming community leaders. In short, their attitudes show that they
>are indeed "listening to a different drummer" than other college
>students.