The Nineties Report
The
purpose of the Nineties Report is to increase our knowledge and understanding
of cultures, values and belief systems among young people of Sweden in
the 1990's. The approach is based on participatory research. It all started
with a group of young people taking part in an experimental education
called "Building the Future", in which they studied the methods
and theories of futures studies. On the 1 1/2-year fulltime course some
of the participants (born between 1969 and 1974) continued to an additional
course in qualitative analysis.
Research
design
The core consists of a panel study with yearly in-depth face-to-face interviews
lasting 1-3 hours with young people aged 19-25, a random sample, representative
of the country as a whole, adjusted for sex, family background, parental
status, employment situation, education, work and ethnic distribution.
The data was then processed and analyzed with the participation of the
interviewees themselves throughout the interpretation process. To secure
the validity and reliability of the in-depth interviews regular surveys
were performed with parallel samples (see research design).
In addition,
video-recorded group discussions took place with young people to check
the relevance of the questions. Lastly several films and multimedia presentations
were produced within the framework of the project.
Particular
importance was attached to future orientations; what makes young people
tick, their dreams and lifestyles, including their views on the family,
technology, culture, mobility and environmental issues.
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 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.
©2003
Bi Puranen
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