T-25-B2021-90172
Çakıroğlu Çevik A., Topaloğlu D.(Yürütücü), Mocan D., Gökhan G.
Yükseköğretim Kurumları Destekli Proje, Üniversite Destekli Diğer Projeler, 2026 - 2027
- Proje Türü: Yükseköğretim Kurumları Destekli Proje
- Destek Programı: Üniversite Destekli Diğer Projeler
- Başlama Tarihi: Mart 2026
- Bitiş Tarihi: Ocak 2027
Proje Özeti
Career aspiration and major (field of study) selection are deeply and mutually connected processes that strongly affect one’s future economic, social, and psychological state. This process or decision is shaped not only by personal abilities, interests, or qualifications but also by structural factors such as gender, class, institutional norms, employment policies, and available opportunities. For women students, structural factors operate as gendered constraints throughout higher education and during the transition from school to work. In other words, young women encounter multiple obstacles—from the selection of fields to their university experience and transition from education to work—that have affected their professional choices and their ability to feel confident in their careers. Therefore, women students’ perception of constraints and opportunities should be examined to understand how they build awareness and develop strategies for their education and career management/aspirations. This project aims to explore how women university students, who are soon to graduate, expect gender-based challenges in both their education journey and emerging career pathways, which may affect their professional path and development after graduation. In our project, we will employ a qualitative research method, specifically semi-structured interviews and focus groups, to comprehensively explore the experiences, opinions, interpretations, and expectations of the subjects. The semi-structured interviews will be conducted with 32 final-year women students from different faculties (i.e., engineering, business administration, and social science faculties) across four public and private universities in Ankara (namely Middle East Technical University, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, TED University, and Bilkent University) to examine comparative disciplinary cultures. In other words, participants will be 4 women from each faculty (8 from each university), for a total of 32 university students, to examine institutional and field differences. Additionally, 2 separate faculty-based focus group sessions will be held to address shared perceptions of gendered constraints on career aspirations, thereby facilitating discussions within distinct disciplinary contexts. The analysis will be conducted in MAXQDA using a thematic analysis approach. By doing that, research will identify models of how women go beyond, internalize, negotiate, or address gendered expectations at different stages of their university education, including the final year. The project aims to contribute to the sociological literature by providing the gender problems and gendered career expectations of women university students in Ankara. The project's findings will highlight structural and cultural factors that shape women’s trajectories before they enter the labour market, addressing a significant gap in national research. The project also aims to provide insights into the higher education environments as producers or challengers of gender inequalities, showing evidence that may inform future academic discussions, institutional awareness efforts, and gender-sensitive support mechanisms for policymakers.