Global Generation Is there a global pattern when it comes to young people´s thoughts and values? What is the role of cultural factors and history at a time when country after country is speeding ever faster towards an IT society in which traditional national boundaries are blurred? Several pilot studies are being carried out in various countries in order to test the method and the model used in the Nineties Report (see above under Presentations). The main purpose of these studies is to collect reference material to enable us better to understand the interaction between young people´s thoughts and values in Sweden and the ongoing globalization process. Modernization is not necessarily synonymous with Westernization, but the part played by cultural preferences and values in this day and age is a process that we ignore at our peril. Knowledge of these societal processes may be the key to a deeper understanding of the transition that we are now going through the transition from the second to the third millennium. For many countries this is also a transition to values and driving forces that differ from those of industrial society. Therefore, as a means of getting a global bearing on these processes, pilot studies are now under way in Malaysia, Venezuela, Hong Kong and several European countries. How GG is connected to the Nineties Report The panel study of young people's values and belief systems - the Nineties Report - formally ended as the name indicates with the decade it mirrored. The panel is aging, once starting as 19-25 years of age they're now getting to their thirties. A new panel with young people being 19-25 at the millennium shift were started now named the "Global Generation". But wouldn't it be a waste not trying to study how the life cycle influence when young people mature; starting families, finish education and beginning to pay mortgages? Yes definitely and that's why we decided to continue the panel as long as the respondents accept our tricky questionnaires. Still, after so many years, we only have 6-7 percent as internal dropout rate. The explanation is probably that this is a true participatory research project, young people conduct all the interviews and they are likewise active in the analysis work and the different modes of presentations of the results. Worldwide intergenerational analysis Another valuable tool in the analysis is the World Value Survey which makes it possible not just to compare values between some sixty countries worldwide but also to compare changes between three different cohorts (from 1986/87 and 1995/96 and 1999/2000) and between all ages from 16 to 75 within these cohorts and countries. Method Our starting-point is an empirical study dealing with young people´s driving forces, values and ideals: the Nineties Report. Arguably, the young people of the nineties are an extremely valuable social resource that we pay scant attention to. Apart from annual in-depth interviews that indicate changes over time, quantitative surveys both of the target group and of older people are conducted on a continuous basis. These surveys include implementation and information/marketing measures that will make it possible to communicate the findings to the general public, to politicians and to specific target groups (consisting mainly of young people). The methods used are based on a three-stage model. The first stage consists of research and strategic analyses based on grounded theory and participatory research. The young themselves take part in all stages of the survey, including the analyses. Triangulation, mixing qualitative and quantitative methods, is used. Interactive media are used throughout to report the findings. Figures and statistics revealing young people´s attitudes to the opportunities and risks inherent in mobility will be found below, see Statistics and Figures. Read more: - With young vioces - Why Ask Young About the Future? - A Study of Values - Young Men and Women on Energy - Facts - Statistics and Figures