Version 5

Data collection began in the 1987-88 academic year with a panel of teenagers (G2) randomly selected from a list of 9th graders attending the St. Paul (Minnesota) Public Schools. G2 respondents have filled out surveys near-annually (exceptions are 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008, and 2010), first administered in their high school classrooms (Waves 1 through 4) and subsequently by mail, through 2011 (Wave 19), when the respondents were 37 and 38 years old. Shorter surveys containing many of the same topics were administered to students in 1992, 1993, and 1994. In 1995, a full survey was administered covering the wide range of topics included in the previous surveys as well as information on career plans and life events that had occurred in the past five years. G2 Waves 9 through 15 (1997-2004) included many of the same questions contained in 1992-1994 surveys. The parents of the G2 cohort (G1) were surveyed in the first and fourth waves of the study, when their G2 children were in the first year of high school and four years later. In 2008, the children of G2 who were age 11 and older were recruited (G3). The first data collection (a mailed survey) from G3 occurred in 2009, followed by the second in 2010, and the third in 2011, again including those children who turned 11, as well as older children who had not joined the study previously. Data collection for the G2 and G3 cohorts for years 2019 and 2020, asks similar questions as previous survey years.