What does research suggest might best engage Gen Z? What are some interests?
This website is inclusive, and everyone is welcome. With the hopes of cultivating dialogue, it gently uses various terms associated with "generations." Phrases like "Generation Z or Gen Z, Gen Alpha, Millennials, Boomers," and more are treated as prototypes for opening conversations between generations and for deepening our understanding of each other so that we can work together to build a better, kinder world, one with less defaulting to harmful, often cruel and dangerous stereotyping. Those who teach benefit from listening to the diverse experiences of their students. What does it mean to grow up in a digital world? To have so much information (and admittedly, disinformation) at one's fingertips? To experience drills for mass shootings? To have grown up during COVID? And more. . . .
Researchers and my own experiences suggest these qualities or interests for Generation Z (or Gen Z), generally speaking:
o they have an “entrepreneurial spirit” and
o a passion for changing the world for the better;
o want “more agency in . . . their learning environment”
o and “more playfulness, ‘tinkering,’ and experimental learning”;
o they wish “to co-create, live stream, and help to make up the activity as they participate,”
o more focus on “content is everyone,” “high intensity relationships with those in authority,” and communication “through images, icons and symbols”;
o they do not want "busy work" but assignments that are "personal [and] relevant" and to know the rationale behind assignments and how these benefit them in their real-life as society’s changemakers.
Sources: Seemiller 2016; Green 2016; Cook 2015; Tolbize 2008; and Mohr and Mohr 2017.
Researchers and my own experiences suggest these qualities or interests for Generation Z (or Gen Z), generally speaking:
o they have an “entrepreneurial spirit” and
o a passion for changing the world for the better;
o want “more agency in . . . their learning environment”
o and “more playfulness, ‘tinkering,’ and experimental learning”;
o they wish “to co-create, live stream, and help to make up the activity as they participate,”
o more focus on “content is everyone,” “high intensity relationships with those in authority,” and communication “through images, icons and symbols”;
o they do not want "busy work" but assignments that are "personal [and] relevant" and to know the rationale behind assignments and how these benefit them in their real-life as society’s changemakers.
Sources: Seemiller 2016; Green 2016; Cook 2015; Tolbize 2008; and Mohr and Mohr 2017.
Pew Research Center Shifts Its Reporting on Generations:
To Avoid Harmful Stereotyping and Oversimplication
In an encouraging development in May 2023, Pew Research Center announced a shift in its approach to discussing generations, observing that while it can be useful to talk about generations, these categories "are only one tool" that researchers can use to help understand societal change. Now, Pew Research Center emphasizes that grouping people under such broad labels can oversimplify complex lived experiences, and it also reminds us that differences between younger and older adults might be explained by demographic traits, rather than generation. Thus, going forward, the Center will use generational labels, it says, "sparingly – and only when the data supports such a lens." Read more here:
"Generation labels mean nothing. It's time to retire them."
—Philip N. Cohen
Tara Jacoby made this compelling gif of incinerating generation labels. It well reminds us of the ease with which categories can "drive people toward stereotyping and rash character judgment," as sociology professor Philip N. Cohen notes. In his 2021 Washington Post article, Cohen points readers to an open letter addressed to the Pew Research Center and signed by some 150 demographers and social scientists, urging the center to stop using generation labels like the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z, and, I add, Gen Alpha. The argument is that Pew's "generations" cause confusion and misunderstanding, are arbitrary, have no scientific basis, promote pseudoscience, undermine public understanding, and impede social science research. The petitioners assert that these generation categories are "imposed" by survey researchers, journalists, or marketing firms "before the identities they are supposed to describe even exist," as Cohen observes in his Washington Post article. In short, as I discovered during my past deep dives into "generations," these labels are mostly used to make money. In my research during my first Lecturer Teaching Fellowship in 2019-2020, I encountered the arbitrary nature of these labels and how they often harden into unhelpful stereotypes. Though I have found them useful in helping me study and organize the concrete histories during which my students, colleagues, and I were born and grew up, I see them prototypically, for one always has in mind the intersectionalities of individuals and the complexities of real life, which deserve active listening since every person has unique and evolving experiences and stories that deserve my utmost respect. Since we are likely stuck with generation labels for the foreseeable future, these pages offer research on them because if we are to transcend these labels, we benefit from having an acquaintance with what we wish to move beyond.
What's Your Generation?
What year did you enter college?
Click diagram above for Pew Research discussions
Cross-Generational Dialogue
We know that every generation has a different collective childhood. Each has unique experiences with technology and history. These differences create diverse perspectives. Presently six generations dialogue on university campuses, contributing varied points of view: Generation Z, Millennials (Gen Y), Xennials, Gen X, Baby Boomers, and Traditionalists. Gen Alpha joins us in 2030. The Generational Chart shows specific human experiences that contribute to each. As these generation cut-off dates vary from pollster-to-pollster and marketing-department-to-marketing-department, dates are primarily based on Pew Research standards.
Before the internet, teaching primarily meant “sage[s] on . . . stage[s]” (King, 1993). Knowledge flowed from the top down in a strict hierarchy. That has been upended, thankfully. It was pure boredom: Teachers commanded classrooms from up front and transmitted knowledge to conscientious receivers. Gen Z wants to collaborate! Their reupping, subredditing, remixing, quantum-computing, black-hole-imaging, memes-speaking “participatory culture” (Shifman, 2015) has upended this paradigm, thankfully, leaving many non-Gen-Zers memefounded. Sage-on-the-stage did not center dialogue, and dialogue is a timeless pedagogy. In an ongoing effort to maximize learner participation, including my own, this website presents insights of students and others who help me understand Gen Z. This research informs my often constructivist pedagogical approach. Our website also has classroom Activities engaging Gen Z in robust digital literacies, and student-focused eworkshop materials at How-To. You're also invited to visit the companion Tumblr teaching site Creative Space. My author website is www.carmenbutcher.com.
- Gen Alpha students were born in and since 2013.
- Gen Z students celebrate birthdays from 1997 through 2012.
- Millennials were born from 1984 through 1996.
- Xennials were born from 1977 through 1983.
- Gen Xers were born from 1965 through 1976.
- Baby Boomers were born from 1946 through 1964.
- Traditionalists were born from 1928 through 1945.
Before the internet, teaching primarily meant “sage[s] on . . . stage[s]” (King, 1993). Knowledge flowed from the top down in a strict hierarchy. That has been upended, thankfully. It was pure boredom: Teachers commanded classrooms from up front and transmitted knowledge to conscientious receivers. Gen Z wants to collaborate! Their reupping, subredditing, remixing, quantum-computing, black-hole-imaging, memes-speaking “participatory culture” (Shifman, 2015) has upended this paradigm, thankfully, leaving many non-Gen-Zers memefounded. Sage-on-the-stage did not center dialogue, and dialogue is a timeless pedagogy. In an ongoing effort to maximize learner participation, including my own, this website presents insights of students and others who help me understand Gen Z. This research informs my often constructivist pedagogical approach. Our website also has classroom Activities engaging Gen Z in robust digital literacies, and student-focused eworkshop materials at How-To. You're also invited to visit the companion Tumblr teaching site Creative Space. My author website is www.carmenbutcher.com.
Generational Chart
Click chart to download