Construct · 2 fields · 4 citations
One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.
● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaningcohortcompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to generation is cohort.
Hold this as a prompt, not a verdict. Two constructs sitting close in meaning is a reason to read them side by side and decide for yourself whether they are one idea under two names. It is not proof that they are. Compare the meanings in the Collider.
Spokes are fields; dashed arcs are shared lineage. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.
Drag to watch the word get claimed. Each field appears at the publication date of the earliest source cited for it. Tap a year to see which.
A group of people born and coming of age at about the same time, treated as a unit because shared historical experience during their formative years leaves a lasting common stamp on their outlook. Mannheim's 1928 essay The Problem of Generations argued that a generation is a social location, not merely an age, and Ryder's 1965 The Cohort as a Concept in the Study of Social Change formalised the birth cohort as the demographic unit that carries such change through a population. The referent is a cohort of humans defined by their time of birth and their shared history, and it is not a parent-to-offspring step in breeding, the output of a power plant, or a batch of objects in a computer's memory.[1][2]
In automatic memory management, a group into which allocated objects are sorted by how long they have survived, so that a garbage collector can scan the youngest group often and the older ones rarely, exploiting the fact that most objects die young. Lieberman and Hewitt's 1983 A real-time garbage collector based on the lifetimes of objects proposed grouping by lifetime, and Ungar's 1984 Generation Scavenging named these age groups generations and built a collector around them. The referent is an age band of data objects inside a running program, promoted from young to old as it survives, and it bears no relation to a cohort of people, a breeding cross, or a power station's output.[3][4]
Next
See how generation sits against neighbouring constructs in the Collider, or export every reference on this page in one click.
Open in ColliderExport BibTeXReport this collisionCited on this page?
If your work is cited behind one of these entries, you know better than we do whether we captured the meaning right. Confirm it, suggest an edit, or dispute it, and your name goes on the entry as an author who has checked it, linked to your ORCID.
Claim your construct