Becoming Albertan
Studying Youth Political Identity Formation
The Becoming Albertan Project is a collaborative research initiative uniting academics, educators, and students in the study of youth political identity development.
Beyond critical insights into how and when Alberta youth internalize the “cowboy myth” that makes up the province’s political culture, findings from the project will improve the way we teach identity in our classrooms and support marginalized youth to integrate broader notions of community with their own personal identities.
This study is funded by a Signature Grant from The Kule Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) and the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA).
This study has been approved by the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board (Pro00107773).
What we’ve learned so far…
If pictures are worth a thousand words, a thousand drawings speak volumes about how youth absorb Alberta's Wild West culture.
Interested in participating?
We are recruiting administrators and teachers to help conduct our study in classrooms throughout Alberta.
Project Overview
When do youth learn what it means to “be Albertan”? According to ongoing research by our Common Ground team, adults in the province tend to view Alberta politics through a ‘wild west’ lens. In focus groups, they describe the average Albertan as a cowboy, roughneck, or farmer. This personification exercise helps uncover the foundations of the province’s political culture -- the underlying values that guide its politics, and the myths we tell to unify our communities. The Becoming Albertan study will engage youth in a similar activity, helping to determine how, when, and where young people absorb common conceptions of what it means to “be Albertan.” Expanding upon Common Ground research conducted with university students and the general adult population, elementary and secondary school students from across the province will be asked to “draw an Albertan” and write a simple backstory about the person they drew. Based on this data, teacher reflections, and select focus group discussions, researchers will determine the point at which young people demonstrate the dominant political values and identity markers of the broader community. Findings will provide insight into the challenges facing youth whose personal identities conflict with the dominant conceptualization of what it means to “be Albertan.”
Our Team
Jared Wesley is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. He specializes in the comparative analysis of provincial politics, with a particular focus on political cultures. His book, Code Politics: Campaigns and Cultures on the Canadian Prairies (UBC Press, 2011), revealed the evolution of Alberta’s cowboy political culture from the early-twentieth century to the present day.
Lynette Shultz is a professor in the Educational Policy Studies Department at the University of Alberta. Her work links citizenship education, leadership and policy studies, and education with a particular focus on global institutions and relations, and global citizenship. She has designed several online global classrooms to link students around the world to study global issues such as energy use and climate change, global citizenship, and equity issues.
Wade Leduc is an English Language Arts teacher at Spruce Grove Composite High School, and a member of the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA). He has taught both English and Social Studies at a variety of secondary grade levels, and strives to cross curricular boundaries by addressing current events, identity, and civic responsibility in the English Language Arts classroom. He believes that encouraging students to explore difficult topics and questions in the Humanities classroom is crucial in helping them become informed and engaged citizens.
Tyson Mastel is assistant principal at Brightview School (Edmonton Public). He has 17 years of experience in elementary education having taught various grades and specializing in social and language arts. He has also served as curriculum coordinator. Tyson earned a nod as one of EDify’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2019, in large part due to his commitment to finding innovative ways to inspire inclusion and empathy amongst his students, staff, and parents.
Methodology & Activities
Two questions drive our research:
At what stage in their education do Alberta youth exhibit an acceptance of their province’s dominant political culture, i.e., the ‘wild west’ or ‘cowboy’ myth?
To what extent is acceptance of this political culture uniform across different communities throughout Alberta?
The project began with a pilot study in May 2021, conducted in 10 schools throughout Parkland School Division located west of Edmonton. Beginning in early 2022, the main research phase will involve 100 schools selected by cluster sampling based on school type (Catholic, charter, private, public), community size (rural, urban, suburban), and their home communities’ socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., average income, education level, ethnicity, Indigenous population, foreign-born population). Three (3) classes of an average of 20 students will be involved from each school (for a total of 330 classes and 6600 students in the pilot and main phases). Participants will include students in art, language arts, and/or social studies classes from Grades 3 to 12. All divisions, schools, teachers, and students will participate on a voluntary basis.
The research team will provide each participating teacher with an instructional video to play for their students at the outset of the class activity. Students will be asked to “draw me an Albertan.” According to the researcher’s prompts, “that Albertan could be doing something, wearing something, holding something, standing next to something….” After providing their characters with proper names (e.g., Joe, Al), students turn over their paper and record their characters’ life backstories (e.g.,their age, where they live and work, their family and religious status). The teacher then facilitates a class discussion about which of the various characters is the “most typical Albertan”, meaning the one who receives the most attention when people talk about Alberta. Disagreement among student participants would suggest a less cohesive political culture, while quick consensus would reveal a common underlying understanding of what it means to be “Albertan.” The teacher will take note of the chosen persona and record highlights of the discussion by completing a brief online survey. A select number of classes will be chosen to participate in a focus group discussion with the research team, helping us better understand why students drew what they did. All drawings, stories, and teacher reflections will be collected and mailed to the research team.
Note: no personally-identifiable information is collected from students as part of this process; while individual drawings are the unit of observation, the class is the unit of analysis. The study must be approved by the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board and the ethics bodies of participating divisions and schools.