Youth Survey: Generation tame
By Charlie Gillis - Friday, April 10, 2009 - 17 Comments
Exclusive Report: For the first time in ages, fewer teens are drinking, using drugs and having sex. What’s going on?
Asia Reid isn’t asking for a medal. The 15-year-old went to a party last New Year’s Eve knowing full well that liquor would be flowing. And it’s not like she’s never tasted the stuff. Reid is your typical teenager in Ottawa running with your typical crowd, and the scene that night might have been drawn from a Judd Apatow comedy. There was a booze-fuelled bash at the home of a girl who is an acquaintance of Asia’s ex-boyfriend (“I’m not really close with her”), plus a rare green light from the folks to get out and enjoy herself. If ever there was a time to indulge, this was it.
Strange, then, that such old-fashioned qualms should have stopped her hand when the strong drink came around. “My parents’ opinion has always been a huge thing in my life,” the Grade 9 student admits, sounding sheepish. “It’s not so much the punishment I would get if they found out I’d been drinking. It’s that, if I ever disappoint them, it makes me feel, like, weird.” Then there was school. “The people who party a lot skip class, and I want to go into biology or engineering,” she explains. “I’m going to have to take some pretty hard courses. I won’t be able to miss school all the time.”
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Youth Survey: The surprising optimism of Aboriginal teens
By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 8:24 AM - 1 Comment
84 per cent of on-reserve youth expect to get the job they want, and 79 per cent predict they’ll be more comfortable financially than their parents.
Nadine Good is aware of how much better her upbringing was from that of her parents. After all, she belongs to the first generation of native Canadians who didn’t attend Indian Residential Schools. Her parents, on the other hand, “were taken at a young age; they didn’t get the love, the protection and guidance,” says the 19-year-old, who lives in the Snuneymuxw First Nation near Nanaimo, B.C. The effects of the institutional abuse may linger, but the fact that Nadine didn’t experience it directly go a long way in explaining why she’s so optimistic about her future. “Since I was in Grade 7, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer,” she says. “That’s how I’m going to make a difference for First Nations people.”
Nadine’s surprisingly positive outlook isn’t unique among aboriginal youth. Data from Project Teen 2008—which, for the first time ever, offers comprehensive insight into the experiences, values and aspirations of this group—shows that an overwhelming majority envision a bright future for themselves. Of aboriginal teenagers living on a reserve, 89 per cent believe that anyone who works hard can rise to the top, significantly higher than the national average. Likewise, 84 per cent of on-reserve youth expect to get the job they want, and 79 per cent predict they’ll be more comfortable financially than their parents. The results, says James Penner, associate director of Project Teen Canada 2008, “blow stereotypes in one’s own mind at the vibrancy, resilience and optimism of aboriginal youth.”
