Stories of Transition: Exploring the Antecedents of Career and Educational Choices among Young Adults

Stories of Transition will gather and analyze the stories of 120 young Atlantic Canadians in their mid twenties about what they have been doing since they graduated from high school and their reflections on the supports, roadblocks and detours they have encountered along the way. The sample will be divided between Halifax, rural PEI, and Calgary. Two handbooks will be written to help parents and counselors gain a deeper understanding of the challenges young people face after they graduate from high school.

The purpose of this study is:

• • To gain a deeper understanding of the educational and occupational pathways that high school graduates take with a particular emphasis on the stories they tell about the detours and dead ends that they encounter.
  • To examine how access, or the lack of access, to financial resources impacts on the pathways young people take.
  • To identify the messages young people hear from parents, friends, teachers, counsellors, and others in their lives that help or hinder their transitioning from high school to postsecondary education and/or into the workforce.
  • To examine the impact that low- and high-opportunity structures have on the narratives young people construct about the pathways available to them.
  • To help parents, teachers, guidance counsellors and career counsellors understand more fully young people’s experiences of career transitions following high school completion in a globalized world.
  • To convey results of the study to parents, teachers, guidance counsellors and career counsellors in order to help them understand more fully the resources and messages young people need to transition successfully from high school into suitable educational and occupational roles.