Young People: Educational and Occupational Choice, 1992

In 1965 the Danish National Institute of Social Research carried out a survey of the educational conditions of the 14 to 20-year-olds. In continuation of this survey it was decided to examine more closely the process leading to the educational conditions mapped out in the 1965-survey. Thus, in the spring of 1968, the Danish National Institute of Social Research carried out a longitudinal survey of the choice of education and occupation of a generation of adolescents at the request of the Ministry of Education. # The aim of this survey, called the youth panel survey, was to examine why some young people choose one education in preference to others and one job in preference to others. Furthermore, the intention was to find out why some young people get an education while others get a job. # Such an aim may best be fulfilled if the survey is longitudinal, i.e. a panel survey, and therefore the survey population consists of 3100 young people, who were to be followed through a period of approx. 6 years, from they were 14-15 till they were 20-21. These young people were selected as a representative sample of all 7th form pupils in the entire country in the spring of 1968. # In order to get as detailed and clear a picture of the process involved in choice of education and occupation an attempt was made at mapping out a large number of aspects which were considered to influence this process. This was done by carrying out various types of interviews, by asking the young people about conditions which did not immediately seem to have any connection with the choice of education and occupation (e.g. spare time activities, and contact with young people of the same age), and by carrying out interviews with the young people's parents and teachers. # On the face of it one might find it sufficient to carry out interviews only once, e.g. when the young people were 25, and then ask the respondents how they had managed. The reason for not doing this was that people only remember a limited number of the aspects which are of importance for how they manage, and as time passes memory becomes more and more distorted. People may answer in such a way that what happened earlier fits in with what happened later. The survey was concerned with what actually happened, and therefore it was necessary to ask about this at the time when it happened, so interviews had to be carried out several times during the course of education and occupation. # #Phase 1: #The first interview with the young people was carried out in May 1968 when the young people, in addition to completing a questionnaire mainly concerning social background, school conditions and spare time activities, completed a questionnaire concerning various social attitudes as well as a questionnaire with three proficiency tests. This first interview was carried out as group interviews in class under the supervision of an interviewer from the Danish National Institute of Social Research. # In addition, the first phase included interviews carried out in May 1968 with the young people's form masters by means of a self-administered questionnaire containing three sections. The first section dealt with general data concerning the teacher and the form; the second section contained the form master's attempt at assessing the educational 'career' of the young people; and the third section included more general assessments where the form master was asked about her/his general attitude to some of the values which the pupils had assessed in the questionnaires they had completed. The questions in the first section of this questionnaire were answered again by the form masters in October 1968 - also by means of a self-administered questionnaire. # Finally, the first phase included postal questionnaire interviews in June 1969 with the young people's parents. Among other things, the parents were asked about their contact with their children's school, and about their expectations as regards their children's education. # #Phase 2: #A somewhat shorter form than the one in phase 1 was completed by the selected young people in 1970. As a rather large number of the young people had by then left school, it was decided to carry out this second interview phase by two stages and by using two different methods. The young people who still attended school participated in group interviews at the school in March under the supervision of a teacher (not under the supervision of an interviewer from the Danish National Institute of Social Research as in 1968, because the pupils now attended different schools - approx. 400 compared with 152 in 1968). In May the young people who had left school were interviewed in their homes by interviewers from the Danish National Institute of Social Research As the two questionnaires used in the group interviews and in the face-to-face interviews were almost alike, an attempt was made at making the two interview situations as similar as possible by handing out an 'empty' questionnaire before the face-to-face interview so that the respondents could follow the questions in this questionnaire during the interview. # #Phase 3: #The third interview phase consisted of face-to-face interviews in May 1971 when the young people were about 17. This time interviews were only carried out with the young people who had left school, i.e. those who had completed the 7th, 8th or 9th form. In addition to questions about job and education, the young people answered questions concerning spare time activities, their friends, their attitude to their parents and their wishes for the future, and as was the case in connection with the face-to-face interview in May 1970 the respondents were given an 'empty' questionnaire. # #Phase 4: #In February 1973 all the selected young people were interviewed (again by means of face-to-face interviews where the respondent received an 'empty' questionnaire). At that time the young people were about 19 and most of them had left school, however, some of them still attended grammar school. In addition to questions about education, occupation and plans for the future, the respondents were asked about parents, friends, etc. and also about their opinions of various conditions, e.g. factors of importance in connection with future occupation and their views of themselves. # The first four phases are filed as DDA-1363: Young People: Educational and Occupational Choice, 1968-1973. # #Phase 5: #The fifth interview phase consisted of face-to-face interviews in November 1976, when the young people were about 22 years old. # This fifth phase is filed as DDA-1364: Young People: Educational and Occupational Choice, 1976. # #Phase 6 (this survey): #The sixth interview phase consisted of face-to-face interviews in October 1992, when the young people were about 38 years old. 2958 of the original 3151 respondents still lived in Denmark, and 90% of them agreed to be interviewed