SIPP Public Policy Papers 46

Abstract

Many First Nations high school teenagers face systemic barriers when making good career and education-related choices. These include poverty, remoteness, unemployment, cultural alienation, and psychological despair.3 Although there is no shortage of research on these all-too-real problems, this article uses a sociological model through which to examine the connection between what high school teenagers in First Nations communities in Manitoba4 say will be their priorities as they enter into adulthood (“life priorities”) and those who help shape those priorities (“life influencers”). That is, the extent to which teenagers report being influenced by those in their family and community as they seek to make choices about their future.