Methods

The Youth and Family project has studied the transition to adulthood using anthropological methods. The special concern of anthropology is understanding human life in social and cultural terms. Anthropologists build their explanations of social and cultural life out of a combination of ethnography ('the description of a culture') and analysis. It is by tracking back and forth between these two perspectives that anthropology achieves its particular insights.

By the term 'social' anthropologists refer to the interconnected sets of roles and relationships in which all human beings participate as members of groups. By the 'cultural' they refer to the rich meanings people draw on to act in social life. Culture is not just about the ethnic songs and dances, spiritual beliefs and customs that help to mark people as different and unique. It is a conceptualisation that allows us to get at the stuff of life, not the icing of identity. Cultural meanings are to be found in everything from practical things such as shopping to abstract ideas about what it means to be an adult.

Research for the Youth and Family Project has been carried out among young people aged 14 to 24 and their parents. The research sample included people of Maori, Greek and Indian backgrounds, as well as those of predominantly British descent.

The original research design was based on the assumption dominant in national statistics, public discourse and research methodology, that New Zealand¹s population is best described in terms of distinctive ethnic groups. Our initial findings challenged this assumption and led to a revision of the method we employed. Although research confirms that the transition to adulthood may be experienced differently by members of the four populations, it also clearly establishes that all New Zealand young people face the same overarching set of social constraints and that they share public understandings and practices of adulthood. In response to this finding, the research team developed other ways of conceptualising the research population, and developed a programme of surveys, group discussions and interviews with students from secondary schools in the Wellington area and their parents.

In total we have surveyed 435 school students and 308 parents. We have conducted in depth interviews with 69 people of Indian background, 63 of Greek, 111 of British/European, 28 of Maori, and 6 of other backgrounds. In total 277 interviews. In addition, numerous contacts were made through participant observation in various contexts.