Province of Alberta High School Graduates (Class of 1996)
Project 3 compared the school-work transitions of Generation Y (Canadians who left high school in the mid-1990s) and Generation X (the generation that followed the “baby boomers” and left high school in the 1980s). In 1996, information was collected from high school students in rural and urban communities across the province of Alberta. A total of 2,681 Grade 12 students in 58 schools provided baseline information about their school and work experiences and aspirations. Seven years later, in 2003, 1,967 of these young adults participated in a follow-up survey.
Longitudinal studies likeProject 1 andProject 2, describe how individuals change as they get older. Project 3 also monitors how one cohort of young Albertans (the Class of 1996; Generation Y) developed across seven years. In addition, Project 3 allows us to look at how cohorts change, by highlighting similarities and differences in the transition to adulthood experiences of the Class of 1996 (Generation Y) and the Class of 1985 fromProject 1 (Generation X).