I.

Demographics
1. What is your age?
2. What is your sex?
3. What is the highest level of education you have completed?
i. High School
ii. Some college
iii. Associates degree
iv. Bachelors degree
v. Post-graduate/professional degree
vi. Other (please specify)
4. Which race/ethnicity best describes you? (Please choose only one)
i. American Indian or Alaskan Native
ii. Asian/Pacific Islander
iii. Black or African American
iv. Hispanic American
v. White/Caucasian
vi. Multiple ethnicity/other (please specify)
5. What is the total annual income of the household in which you live?
i. $0-$24,999
ii. $25,000-$49,999
iii. $50,000-$74,999
iv. $75,000-$99,999
v. $100,000-$124,999
vi. $125,000-$149,999
vii. $150,000-$174,999
viii. $175,000-$199,999
ix. $200,000 and up
6. Do you identify with any of the following religions? (Please select all that
apply)
i. Protestantism
ii. Catholicism
iii. Christianity
iv. Judaism
v. Islam
vi. Buddhism
vii. Hinduism
viii. Native American
ix. Inter/Non-Denominational
x. No religion
xi. Other (please specify)
7. How often do you attend religious services?
i. 3 or more times a week
ii. 1-2 times a week
iii. Once a month
iv. Once a year

v. Never
8. What is your political inclination?
i. Strongly liberal
ii. Moderately liberal
iii. Moderately Conservative
iv. Strongly Conservative
v. None
II.

Tell me about your life growing up.

A. Family background probe questions
o Where did you grow up?
o Who did you live with growing up?
When you were growing up were your parents married, divorced,
separated, never married? Did they ever remarry, if divorced?
Siblings? Step-siblings?
o What do your parents do? How long have they worked there? Were they
doing the same or something different when you were growing up?
Where did they grow up? Did they graduate from high school or college?
o How would you characterize your experience of growing up? What was
your life like? What did you like and/or dislike about it?
o What were some of the things that you did with your family growing up?
What was a typical day like in your household when you were growing
up?
o Were there any major changes, events, transitions, or disruptions that
occurred in your family when you were growing up?
o Other related questions
B. School background probe questions:
Did you like school? What about it did you like/dislike?
Did you do well in school?
Extra-curricular activities/sports?
Friends?
What did you consider doing after high school? What did your family
think you should do? What were your friends doing?
o Other related questions
o
o
o
o
o

C. Anything else you want to say about your life growing up that we have not
touched on? In what ways do you believe your experiences growing up have
shaped the person you are today?
III.

Tell me a bit about your life now.

1. Living situation/relationship status/children probe questions

o Do you currently live with someone, or do you live alone?
If with someone, are you married?
If you live with someone and are not married, are you in a serious
relationship? Is there a chance you might eventually marry the
person with whom you are living?
o Do you have any children?
If yes, do they live with you?
If no, do you think you eventually want to have children?
o Feelings about current living situation/relationship status/children?
o What do you like and dislike about your current living
situation/relationship/children situation? What, if anything, would you
change if you could?
o If living with spouse, partner, and/or children, what sorts of things do you
do with your spouse, partner, and/or children?
o What changes, if any, do you expect will occur with respect to your
current living situation/relationship status/family within the next 10 years
or so?
o Have you experienced in your life any major changes, events, transitions,
or disruptions with respect to your living situation/relationship/family?
What were these? How were you affected?
o In what ways, if any, do you think that the person you are today has been
shaped by your current (or past, excluding pre-adult years) living
situation/relationship/family?
B. Work/school/finances probe questions
o Are you currently in school?
If yes, then ask: Full-time or part-time, major, time to degree, plans
after graduation? How do you pay? Do you like college (or graduate
school)? What kind of grades do you get? How much time do you
spend on your studies? How did you choose your major? How do
you expect that the completion of your degree will affect your life
prospects following graduation? What do you see yourself doing
after you finish school?
o Are you currently employed?
If yes, then ask: Full-time or part-time? Where do you work? How
long have you had this job? How long have you been working? Tell
me about how you found your job. What are your feelings about
your current job? What do you like and/or dislike about your job?
How is the pay from your job?
o How would you describe your current financial situation?
If living independently from parents, ask: Do you make enough
from your job to pay your essential bills? What is your debt
situation? Student loans? Credit cards? Mortgage? Savings?

Financial stability? Financial worries? Do you make enough money

now to live the way you want to live? Think about how much money
it takes to live a middle class lifestyle. How much money would you
have to make a year to say that you were middle class? How close
are you to being able to do that?
If living with parents or relatives, ask: What are the primary reasons
why you currently live with your parents/relatives? Do you make
enough money at your job that you could live independently if you
wanted to do so? If you do not make enough money, what do you
think it would take to be able to live independently? When, or
under what circumstances, do you think you will be able to live
independently? What are your primary financial concerns?
o Other related questions
C. Other aspects of life
o Friendships? Other than your immediate family members, do you have
close friendships? How much time do you spend with your close friends?
What do you do together?
o Daily life Where does most of your time go in your daily life? Pie
chart? Pace of everyday life? Pressured? Relaxed? Do you have
enough time each day? If you had more time, in what area(s) of your life
would you be most likely to spend it?
o Free time? Do you have any? If so, what do you do in your free time?
Do you want more free time than you currently have? What would you do
with more free time?
o Travel/vacation?
o Anything else about your current life that is important to you that we have
not touched on?
IV.

Adulthood
o What do you think is the hardest thing about growing up today? Thinking
back, what do you think was the hardest thing about growing up as you
were reaching adulthood? Was there ever a time when you felt like people
misunderstood what it is or was like to be a young adult? In your
experience, whats the difficulty that older people are or were most likely
to overlook? Can you tell me about a time when you were frustrated by
this lack of understanding?
o How would you define adulthood? In the U.S. today, what do you think it
takes for a person to be considered an adult?
o At what point in your life did you come to see yourself as an adult? What
made you feel this way?
o Are there any ways in which you do not feel like an adult? What causes
you to feel this way?

V.

Guiding normative frameworks

o As you were growing up, did your family or others who knew you have
ideas about what you should do with your life and/or what kind of person
you should be? How did this affect you?
o Did you share their ideas, or did you have different ideas about what you
should do with your life and what kind of person you should be? What
about now?
o At this point in your life, do you have any guiding principles, moral
standards, values, or core beliefs that will determine choices you may
make or directions you may go (or not go) as you continue with your life?
What are these?
o Are there or have there been any limitations to the direction your life has
taken and the choices you have made?

VI.

Fixedness vs. Fluidity

o At this point in your life, do you believe you have made choices and
commitments that will forever shape your sense of yourself as a person
and the direction of your life?
o Have there been any points at which you felt like you had been derailed on
your life path or where you had to change course in your life? What
happened, and how did you move forward from that point?
o Have there been any points in your life at which you would say that you
had to reconsider where you were going with your life and even who you
were as a person? What caused this? How did you move forward from
this point?
o Looking at yourself and your life now, how do you and your life compare
to how you thought of yourself in the past and the direction you thought
your life would take?
o What things about you and your life do you think might be different in 10
years? In 20 years? What things about you and your life are you nearly
sure will remain the same?

VII.

Routine/daily life
o When you look at your life today, how much of your daily life would you
say follows a routine? What parts of your life follow routine, and what
parts do not?
o Would you like for your life to be more or less routinized? Why?
o If someone were to observe you as you lived your daily life, how well do
you think they would know you simply by watching you go through your
daily routines? How important are your daily routines to your own sense
of who you are as a person?
o How much of your daily routine would you say matches your priorities in
life? Do you feel that the demands of your daily life are in conflict with or
in sync with how you want to live?

o Pie chart what are the most important things in your life? If you could
allocate your time in any way you chose, how much time would you give
to each? In your life as it is, how much time goes to each?