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The Generation X Report: How many Gen Xers know their cosmic address

October 24, 2012

The Generation X Report: How many Gen Xers know their cosmic address

Source: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan

Generation X adults can identify our home in the universe, a spiral galaxy, according to a University of Michigan report.

“Knowing your cosmic address is not a necessary job skill, but it is an important part of human knowledge about our universe and – to some extent – about ourselves,” says Jon D. Miller, author of The Generation X Report.

Miller directs the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). The study, funded by the National Science Foundation since 1986, now includes responses from approximately 4,000 young adults between 37 and 40 years of age — the core of Generation X.

The latest report examines the scientific literacy of Gen Xers about their location in the universe. Miller provided Generation X participants in the study with high-quality image of a spiral galaxy taken by the Hubble space telescope, and asked them to identify the image, first in an open-ended response and then by selecting from multiple choices.

Forty-three percent of the Gen Xers surveyed were able to provide a correct answer that indicated that they recognized the object as a galaxy similar to our own. Miller found that 53 percent of males correctly identified the image, compared with just 32 percent of females, and that the proportion who identified the image correctly rose steadily with education, from 21 percent who had less than a high school education to 63 percent of those with doctorates or professional degrees.

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Categories: education, science, University of Michigan
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