Becoming Albertan: What do youth in the province think it means to “be Albertan”?
Jared Wesley | University of Alberta | jwesley@ualberta.ca
Alicia Bednarski | University of Alberta | abednars@ualberta.ca
December 16, 2021
When do young people become accustomed to the political norms of their broader community? At what point in their development do children and teenagers begin to absorb what’s expected of typical people in their town, province, or country? Do youth see the political world differently than adults? Our Common Ground research team investigates these questions as part of our Becoming Albertan project.
Our Pilot Study
In the Fall of 2019, we conducted 35 focus groups with over 600 adults across the province to investigate current Albertan political culture. According to ongoing research by our Common Ground team, adults in the province tend to view Alberta politics through a “wild west” lens. When asked to “draw an Albertan,” adult participants overwhelmingly pictured people who are white, male, living in a rural area and often in the role of a cowboy, farmer, or oil worker (see Figure 1). Encouraged to view the world through the eyes of this “Average Joe Albertan,” our participants described a provincial worldview that was predominantly conservative. These findings reveal some of the foundations of the province’s political culture -- the underlying values that guide its politics, and the myths we tell to unify our communities.
But what about youth? Do they view the “typical Albertan” in a similar way? By engaging grade school students in a similar activity, we are studying Albertan political identity formation in youth and determine how, when, and where they absorb common conceptions of what it means to “be Albertan.” In May of 2021, we conducted the pilot round of our study in the Parkland School Division, located west of Edmonton.
Figure 1. Adult Participants’ Drawings of the Typical Albertan (November 2019)
Description of activity and of youth
Our pilot included 87 students, drawn from grades three (n=9), six (n=30), seven (n=25) and twelve (n=23).[1] The vast majority of youth reported to have lived in Alberta for all or most of their lives. In terms of gender identification, 45 percent identified as male, 47 percent identified as female, and 8 percent identified as non-binary.
Students were first asked to “draw an Albertan”. According to researcher prompts, their Albertan “can be holding something or wearing something, can be standing next to something, behind something or in front of something.” Next, students are asked to give their Albertan a name. Once they have completed their drawings, students are asked to write a simple backstory about the person they drew.
What does the “quintessential Albertan” look like according to youth?
Compared to those drawn by adults, there was more variety in the characters drawn by youth (see Figure 2). Younger Albertans were more likely than their adult counterparts to draw women, for instance. However, there was still a notable amount of consensus of what a “typical Albertan” looks like, particularly among grade 12 students. Here, we see potential evidence that Alberta’s political culture becomes absorbed rather late in adolescence.
Somewhat surprisingly, only 2 students drew themselves when asked to picture an Albertan. This was about half the proportion of adults who drew themselves (4 percent), and illustrates a clear dissociation between Albertans and their conception of the mainstream.
The majority of students (66 percent) drew a man, whereas nearly a quarter (23 percent) drew a woman. 6 percent of students drew a non-binary [2] person. [3] By comparison, only 12 percent of adults from the initial Common Ground focus groups drew women, and none drew non-binary persons.
Of the students who identified themselves as male, the overwhelming majority (90 percent) drew a man. Nearly 3 percent drew a woman, and 3 percent drew a non-binary person. [4] Students who identified as female were split much more equally; 45 percent drew a man and another 45 percent drew a woman. 8 percent drew a non-binary person. [5] Notably, only 1 of 7 non-binary identifying students drew a non-binary person as their “typical Albertan.”
Figure 2. Gender of Characters Drawn by Grade Level
In terms of the age of the characters drawn, most students pictured Albertans in either under 20 or in their 20s, as opposed to adults in the previous study who mostly drew Albertans in their 30s and 40s.
While most students did not explicitly specify the employment of their Albertan, the most popular form employment was a sports or entertainment celebrity (13 percent of total drawings). Aside from a few who drew Ralph Klein and Peter Lougheed, adults in our Common Ground study did not draw celebrities. Industry workers were the next most popular (9 percent), followed by a tie between oil and gas workers and unemployed (8 percent each). Farmers, civil servants, and corporate employees were seldomly drawn.
Nearly a third (30 percent) of 12th graders made explicit references to their drawn Albertan being a “redneck”. No such references were made in any of the other grade levels. Western and cowboy wear was almost exclusively drawn by grade 12 students. Oil slogans were also only included in drawings by 12th graders.
The vast majority of drawings were set in outdoor and/or rural settings such as by mountains, fields, lakes, and rivers. However, 10 percent of drawings were indicated as being in an urban setting/city (whereas only 2 percent of adults drew their Albertan in an urban setting). Trucks (16 percent) and hockey gear (29 percent) were frequently featured in the youth’s drawings, similar to those drawn by adults.
Similar to the adult study, most Albertans were drawn happy (61 percent) or with a neutral expression (35 percent). Very few students drew an Albertan that was angry, stressed, or sad.
Figure 2. Youth Participants’ Drawings of the Typical Albertan (May 2021)
Here are some verbatim excerpts of the backstories students wrote about their characters:
“Steve is 12 years old. He just moved to Alberta from China. He likes to play with his friend Bobby.” – Grade 3 student
“Olivia is a young teenage girl with green eyes and brown hair. Her friends would say she is the nicest person they've met. Olivia has social anxiety so she hates public speaking and big crowds.” – Grade 6 student
“[My dad] is part Ukraine and some others I've forgotten. He is 42 years old and is an electric engineer. – Grade 6 student
“Steve has lived in the mountains his whole life. He is 25 years old and loves Tim Hortons. His favourite thing to do is go swim in the lake or go fishing. He lived in Alberta for his whole life.” – Grade 7 student
“[Dave’s] grandparents disowned him for voting NDP, but he would vote Liberal if he had to.” – Grade 7 student
“May is a 24 year old gender fluid lesbain, but likes to use the pronouns they/them.” – Grade 7 student
“George is 38 and lives in Calgary. He lived in Alberta all his life. He works on oil rig during the day and on weekends he pops a beer and watches TV while his wife does wife like things. His marriage is strained, on the brink of collapse and has a couple drinking buddies.” – Grade 12 student
“Tyler has very strong political opinions but probably wont take the time to vote.” – Grade 12 student
“Bobby is a 45 year old living in a small town. He was born and raised here in alberta with his mother, father and 4 siblings. he likes to ignore major social issues and blame everything on the liberals.” – Grade 12 student
“Cletus Cornwood spends his days off of the oil fields working on his turbo diesel Ford, smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and drinking other black coffee, or beer. He's a respectable guy, maybe a bit racist, but is generally nice and upstanding.” – Grade 12 student
Next steps
While these research findings remain preliminary, they seem to suggest that somewhere between 7th and 12th grade, youth begin to adopt an increasingly singular view of who is a quintessential Albertan. Drawings become increasingly male, references to cowboys, roughnecks, and oil increase substantially. More drawings from students from different grade levels are needed to determine when this shift happens, and potentially uncover how and why. The research team is currently in the process of recruiting over 100 grade schools across Alberta to participate in the Becoming Albertan Project in the first half of 2022. The schools have been selected via the process of cluster sampling, to ensure an adequate mix of grade levels (elementary, junior high, senior high), geographic regions (North zone, Edmonton zone, Central zone, Calgary zone, South zone), population density (urban, suburban, rural) and school type (public, Catholic, other). More comparative analysis will be completed to determine whether location or population centre type affects if, how and when youth adopt the Albertan “cowboy myth”.
Alberta is a much more diverse province than the “cowboy myth” suggests, and whether or not youth feel represented in the mainstream matters in terms of how they choose to engage (or disengage) with broader political communities. Findings will provide insight into the challenges facing youth, particularly those in BIPOC communities, whose personal identities, according to our adult study and youth pilot study, often fail to align with the dominant conceptualization of what it means to “be Albertan.”
Endnotes
This research was approved by the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board (Pro00107773) and the Parkland School Division. All participants had the permission of their parents to engage in the activity.
Determined if the student explicitly referred to their characters as non-binary (such as by using they/them pronouns).
The gender of the person drawn was not available for the remainder of the drawings.
The gender of the persons drawn were not available for the remainder of the drawings.
The gender of the persons drawn were not available for the remainder of the drawings.