Fight

May 1, 2021

From 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis to mass school shootings and COVID-19, members of Generation Z (born from the late 1990s to early 2000s) have experienced considerable stress--something Della Volpe well knows. As Director of Polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, he has met regularly with young Americans nationwide and documented their distress, which statistics show outpaces that of previous generations. But they're not caving in. As he shows, they are organizing around issues like gun safety and racial and environmental justice to challenge the status quo and outshine their elders in terms of political engagement. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

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October 11, 2021
Della Volpe, the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, debuts with a perceptive and informative survey of the motivations and values of Generation Z. Drawing on the annual “youth poll” he has conducted since 2000, Della Volpe explains how Americans born in the mid-1990s have been galvanized to political action by school shootings, economic uncertainty, and climate change. Young Americans have already pushed the country in a more progressive direction, according to Della Volpe, who notes the political rise of Bernie Sanders and companies’ eagerness to respond to the “values and market potential of Gen Z.” Documenting the rise of the “March for Our Lives” movement after the 2018 Parkland school shooting, Della Volpe paints a vivid picture of the mental strain gun violence has placed on America’s youth. He also explores how the increase in racial harassment and violence in the Trump era cemented Gen Z’s antiracist values, and forecasts that the age group’s political ideals will lead to agricultural reforms, greater civic participation in the U.S., and more emphasis placed on “social wealth and capital,” rather than economic success. Abundant statistical evidence and insightful analysis buttress Della Volpe's optimistic view that Gen Z can help lead America to a brighter future. This is the rare sociological study that manages to inspire.

November 15, 2021
There are big changes coming to American politics, courtesy of Generation Z. Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Institute of Politics, notes that members of Gen Z--those born between roughly 1995 and 2015--are "the most diverse and most educated...in history." Their numbers, at about 70 million, are now larger than the baby boomer generation. The diversity comes in several flavors: They are ethnically diverse, with an uptick in the numbers of multiracial people; they are less bound to binaries than people of the past, with fewer than 80% identifying as heterosexual; and their sense of history is different from that of the boomers and Gen Xers. The oldest of them were scarcely in school on 9/11, and they "have never known their country at peace." All of this contributes to a generational ethos in which "Zoomers" are concerned with economic equity, curbing gun violence, relaxing laws concerning drugs, forgiving student debt, and a host of other issues on which, say, the GOP is not likely to endorse their views. On that note, Della Volpe observes, there's a reason that young people aligned with the superannuated Bernie Sanders, who gave voice to their views: "Bernie's politics are 90 percent targeted to younger people." The Zoomers boosted the Democrats to a majority in the House in 2018, and, adds Della Volpe, "if voting were capped at age twenty-nine, meaning only Gen Z and the youngest millennials could participate, Joe Biden would have won ten times more electoral votes than Trump in 2020." This suggests that politicians would be wise to devote their energies to attending to the interests of the young cohort. As the author concludes, their political tendencies will define the future of the nation, for all the efforts of their foes to suppress their vote. A provocative pleasure for demography geeks and political trend-watchers.

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November 1, 2021
Early on in this sociopolitical profile of Zoomers, aka Generation Z, individuals born since the mid-1990s, Della Volpe, the director of polling at Harvard's Institute of Politics, reminds readers that unlike clubs or political parties, no one gets to choose their generation. Della Volpe cites studies that show these young adults, whose shared circumstances define their realities, anticipate bleak futures mired in gun violence, a dying environment, overt racism, and crippling debt. Della Volpe also expresses his certainty that this generation will bring change. He revisits pivotal events (the Parkland School shooting, George Floyd's murder) and analyzes how Gen-Z actions affected social activism and reform movements. His main argument is that Zoomers (and to a large extent Millennials, unlike previous generations) are influenced by and committed to personal engagement. He holds up the 2020 presidential election results as further proof, maintaining that Joe Biden's message about hearing the voices of young voters was key to his victory. Scrupulously documented, Della Volpe's assertions will seem controversial to some, but only the future will tell.

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