An overview of the political activity of Mexican university
students during the 1968 disturbances in Mexico was compared with data
taken from a 1964 attitudinal survey conducted by the International
Research Associates, Incorporated of university students from nine
Mexican universities in an attempt to find possible trends and attitudes
that could have predicted the 1968 and subsequent riots. The population
for the analysis came from three of the nine universities based on the
levels of activity shown during the 1968 riots ranging from most active
to least active. Three main variables; activism as of 1968, ideological
self-designation as of 1964 and degrees of discrepancy as of 1964 were
cross-tabulated with sex, .age, father\u27s education and community size.
Students who in 1964 saw themselves as falling to the extreme left of
the ideological scale were found to be in the more active university in
1968. The majority of students in 1964 did not view the government
and accompanying institutions as being that far from their own
ideological views. The most active university had the largest percentage
of students in the 31 or older category. Sex held no significance
bearing on activism. Students coming from populations of less than
10,000 were found to be more highly concentrated in the most active
university and those students whose father had completed college were
also concentrated in the more active university
