Hoge, D. R. and J. L. Hoge, et al. 1987. “The Return of the Fifties: Trends in College Students’ Values between 1952 and 1984.” Sociological Forum 2(3): 500-519.
This paper finds a marked shift toward more conservative values and beliefs since the mid-1970s. Based on questionnaires distributed at Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan, the authors find that denominational affiliation, belief in God, and religious service attendance rebounded between 1974 and 1984. These religious changes are accompanied by a rise in conservative values on economic, political, and moral issues such as sex and drug use. The authors conclude that “the extreme personal conformity and political quietism of the fifties has not returned, but all the other attitudes are moving toward the fifties or have already arrived there…The interpretation that American colleges in the late 1980s are seeing a return of the fifties is correct.”
