Seminar Paper

Gender roles in different continents and how they affect students´ vision of
their future career possibilities

Department of International Management

Work Psychology, 232.416, SS 2017

Handed in: 27.06.2017

Word Count:

Gabriela Rincón K1651755

Natalia Kogan K1652256

Robert Isotalo K01652411

Savannah Asztalos K01691629

Index

Index 2

Abstract 3

Introduction 3

Gender roles 4

Stereotypes 5
Gender Stereotypes in high level education
Gender Stereotypes in leadership 5

Hofstede´s Value Dimensions 7

Masculinity vs. Femininity 7

GLOBE Study 8
Gender Egalitarianism 8

Method 1​​2

Analysis 1​​3
Interview pair 1 1​3
Interview pair 2 1​5
Interview Pair 3 1​7
Interview Pair 4 19

Discussion (Conclusion) 2​​0

References 2​​1

Appendix 2​​3
Interview guide 2​3

2
Abstract
This research paper is focusing on gender roles and attitudes, stereotypes and values. The
purpose was to find out how students see their future, which kind of options and opportunities
they have, which are the key values for them and how does gender roles affect in all of these
aspects and in their future careers. For the paper 8 students were interviewed, and the results
were opened and analysed in pairs. The main findings were that there are still some
disparities in gender equality and in the values that different cultures consider as important.
In the end, we realized that equality is more important for students all the time. The
interviewees from Finland were also more focused on their career advancement, while
interviewees from Center Europe and Mexico valued family the most.

Introduction
Women request the same salary as men that hold the same job position, but they also ask
society to change its stereotypes and categorizations towards women and men jobs. We
believe that the degree of education affects how a society deals with this particular topic. This
research shows how gender perceptions in some cultures affect the professional career of
university students. We asked 8 local and international students from the Johannes Kepler
University in Linz, Austria to collaborate in an interview so that we could make a conclusion
about the degree of influence that gender roles affect future career possibilities.

3
Gender roles
With gender roles are meant values and norms, that relate to a specific gender
(Samovar et al. 2009). In Indian culture this can be seen for example when women eat first
after men have finished their meal. Another example is that mothers are usually seen staying
home and taking care of their babies. Gender roles are learned through informal learning, and
families have a big role and effect on the image the child will create in his/ her head about
gender roles. Kids observe their parents all the times at home, and gender roles are one part
of what they learn when observing. The discussion and effect of gender roles start already
when a newborn announced to be a girl or a boy. (Samovar et al. 2009) According to Robbins
(2006), “The infant is given a gender-appropriate name, dressed in properly designed or
coloured clothing, and spoken to in gender-appropriate language”.
Mass media is also affecting gender roles. Studies show, that men are valued over
women even in the USA. Women are usually seen as caring, emotional, socially skilled and
family oriented. These characteristics are stressed by the media. Movies, series, magazines
etc. all create images about how a perfect man/ woman should be like. This will naturally
effect to the image people have in their mind about “the perfect person” they would like to
improve to. This can mean for example the image about the looks or the behaviour. These
images are continuously updated by the media, which leads to that they are basically
unreachable and create a lot of pressure and unnecessary stress to ordinary people. (Samovar
et al. 2009)
There have always been gender roles. Early in the days it was a natural thing, when
men had to hunt the food, while they were physically stronger, while women took care of the
kids and household. The gender roles we are thinking of today is a legacy from the time after
World War 2. The rebuilding of the infrastructure shaped the roles towards the direction we
know them today. The second big thing that affected how gender roles have evolved was
when women were given the right to vote for the first time. It will take time, but a new
generation always brings the topic one step closer to equality. (Samovar et al. 2009)

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Gender roles vary a lot between continents and even countries inside the continents. One
needs to know the history and the cultural differences to understand gender roles in different
countries. It would for example be impossible to compare the gender roles in the Nordic
countries with a religious country from the Middle-East. In the Nordic equality is a given,
and people are really strict about following the unwritten rules concerning equality between
females and males. In the Middle-East, where the religious aspects and thoughts are usually
much stricter, people live according the lessons learned in the Bible or Koran. (Samovar et al.
2009)

Stereotypes

Gender Stereotypes in high level education

Referring to Kizilaslan and Diktaş (2011), gender roles are the set of social and
behavioral norms that are present in a culture and carried out by individuals of each sex in
their occupational and familial contexts. Gender roles are a focus of socialization processes
that become stereotypical for men and women. Gender roles are complex and resistant to
change, but gender stereotypes can be malleable in some way because they are arbitrary
attributes that a society assigns to men and women.​“Gender stereotyping refers to the practice
of ascribing to an individual woman or man specific attributes, characteristics, or roles by
reason only of her or his membership in the social group of women or men” ("OHCHR |
Gender stereotypes/stereotyping", 2017).
Although there is a difference towards gender role perceptions in the labor market
comparing high-income and low-income countries, everywhere around the world women are
overrepresented in education and health; equally represented in social sciences, business, and
law; and underrepresented in engineering, manufacturing, construction, and science ("Gender
Overview", 2017).These demographical characteristics are not only seen in the labor market,
but also in the educational context. There is a notable inequality between the number of males
and females studying in the field of STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and
maths), especially on the highest levels of education ("Improving measurement of Gender

5
Equality in STEM | UNESCO", 2017). The World Bank refers to these imbalances as a
consequence of stereotypes found in the education system, norms governing gender roles in
the household, and also employers attitude towards family formation and childbearing
("Gender Overview", 2017).
According to Gautam (2015) in India, especially for women, “marriageability” and
‘social safety’ are factors that affect women's choices over their professional careers because
their families develop deep concerns about their daughter's future. In India and in many other
countries the search for “safe institutions” becomes more important than the access to degrees
than what the women truly want to study. On the other hand, men in Indian families don't
have to face this problematic. The preoccupying part of this is that men in high levels of
education also follow this traditional gender role stereotypes, while women identify
themselves with a more modern perspective of gender roles. This is relative, because in the
case of “male dominated”degrees, both men and women identify themselves with the
traditional roles, and on the other hand, “female dominated” degrees identify themselves with
more modern roles. Possible solutions to this problematic are to add more majors or career
opportunities in universities; more modern gender role attitudes through the curricula and
course books, and, of course, change the gender stereotypes in the everyday life of students.
Students should also be able to shape the process of education, because it's not a one way
transfer of knowledge (Hajnalka, 2014). They should be able to question the traditional forms
of expression and ways to transmit knowledge from teacher to student and vice versa.

Gender stereotypes in leadership positions

According to Madden (2011) there are two themes for the research on gender stereotypes in
the discussion of leadership. One of the stereotypical dimensions applied to women posits
such as “competent” and “friendly”, which are bipolar opposites on a single trait dimension.
In this case, women can be either competent or friendly, they cannot be both. Another fact is
that people tend to think that looking more masculine than feminine is the same as being
more competent. At the end, women can be perceived as feminine, warm and incompetent or

6
masculine, cold and competent. The other dichotomy refers to leadership styles between
“agentic” and communal”. In this case, agentic means that the person is task-oriented while
communal means that it's more focused on the group dynamic and in the process of decision
making. In conclusion, women are seen as having the tendency to be more communal and
men more agentic.
Now, focusing more on gender stereotypes in the role of leadership in high education
levels, there is clearly an abundance of men and a lack of women in academic leadership in
high education levels, These apparent gender stereotypes influence students at universities
and furthers discrimination reflected on gender inequality. A reflection of this is that women
only occupied 27% of high education institutions in 2011, while they dominated the
workforce in the lowest levels of education with a 68.6%. This is due to the stereotype that
women should be all nurturing and caring, while men should be powerful and dominant. All
of these characteristics influence the way that students in high levels of education view
gender roles in leadership.

Hofstede´s Value Dimensions

Masculinity vs. Femininity

Considering Hofstede's Value Dimensions as one of the first attempts

to understand the different cultural values of countries analyzing
between more than one thousand managers from 50 different
countries and 3 geographical regions, inside a multinational
organization, he came up with cultural value dimensions that
explained how people behave in different contexts of life (Samovar,
Porter, & Edwin, 2007).
. Hofstede's Value Dimension of Masculinity / Femininity identifies the degree in
which masculinity and femininity traits are appreciated in a given society . Masculinity

7
versus its opposite, femininity, refers to the distribution of roles between the genders in
certain countries. The masculinity side of that dimension defines that dominant values in
society are mainly focused on striving for achievement and success. There is a preference
towards heroism, assertiveness, and material reward for success which makes societies more
competitive. There is a performance ambition, a need to excel and an admiration towards the
successful achiever. On the other hand, Femininity orientated societies have a tendency of
considering as main values the will of caring for others, serving others, and prioritizing
quality of life as a main target . There is a preference towards cooperation, modesty and also
caring for the weak. These Femininity oriented societies are at large more consensus -
oriented and people work in order to live and enjoy life ("Dimensions - Geert Hofstede",
2017).
Countries which are more masculine in values according to Hofstede are: Ireland, The
Philippines, Greece, Venezuela, Austria, Japan, Italy and Mexico. On the other hand,
countries with more feminine values are: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and the
Netherlands. These characteristics can be observed in the “gender gap” measure of the World
Economic Forum, where in 58 countries and using 5 aspects of women empowerment such as
educational attainment, and health and well being Sweden and Norway were in the 1st and
2nd position, while United States in position No.17, Japan 38 and Mexico 52. (Samovar,
Porter, & Edwin, 2007).

8
GLOBE Study

Gender Egalitarianism
Though the GLOBE study’s dimension are closely related to and even to some degree
derived from Hofstede’s cultural value studies, they differ to some degree when looking at
masculinity and gender egalitarianism. The “GLOBE [study] is a long-term programmatic
research effort designed to explore the fascinating and complex effects of culture on
leadership, organizational effectiveness, economic competitiveness of societies, and the
human condition of members of the societies studied” (Shi & Wang, 2011) with the “purpose
of the Project GLOBE was to increase available knowledge that is relevant to cross-cultural
interactions.”(Shi & Wang, 2011). The GLOBE study used Hofstede’s work as a building
block to form its own diagnostics and test out further new hypotheses. The “results were
presented in the form of quantitative data”(Shi & Wang, 2011). A key aspect of the GLOBE
study was that it took into consideration “ both actual society practices (‘‘As Is’’) and values
(‘‘Should Be’’) in the different cultural settings” (Shi & Wang, 2011), which is an important
distinction because the results seemed to differ. The “As Is” area, within each GLOBE study
dimension, aimed to measure the “actual practices in their organization”, while the “Should
Be” took into account what the country or organization thinks should be in place.
Differences between the two studies: (Shi & Wang, 2011)

9
Though there are many differences between the GLOBE Study and Hofstede’s study such as
can be see from the tables below. The focus will be on the dimensions to do with gender.
Hofstede’s dimension that in particular took gender into account was the Masculinity
dimension. The GLOBE study unlike with other of Hofstede’s dimensions did not take the
masculinity dimension on directly but rather adapted it. “House et al found it necessary to
develop their own measures since they found Hofstede’s Masculinity index lacked face
validity and also was confounded by items that appeared to measure multiple constructs.”(Shi
& Wang, 2011) Furthermore as “scholars suggest that Hofstede’s studies did not measure
feminine scores directly – a lack of masculinity was considered feminine, but in contrast, the
GLOBE project measured feminine scores perse” (Shi & Wang, 2011).
The GLOBE study as mentioned early measured “both actual society practices (‘‘As
Is’’) and values (‘‘Should Be’’)” (Shi & Wang, 2011), which turned out to be largely
beneficial. For “the values score in most cases was noticeably different from the
practices score (often, but not always, higher than the practices score). For example,
business people worldwide valued – desired –more gender egalitarianism than they said they
were experiencing in practice.” (Cornelius N. Grove, 2005). Which can be seen controversial
in some instances because it “has been [believed] that people behave in a certain way because

10
they hold certain values in high esteem.”(Cornelius N. Grove, 2005). However the GLOBE
study results often contradicted this. Which lead to the suggestion that possibly “if people in
practice possess a low degree of something perceived as good, its absence may lead them to
value it all the more. But if people in practice have a high degree of something perceived as
good, the value they put on it doesn’t need to be high” (Cornelius N. Grove, 2005).

(Shi & Wang, 2011)

When considering the effects of gender roles in different countries on students’ vision
on the future, gender egalitarianism seems like a perfect means to begin to understand it. The
study found that in “accounting for all 61 societies, the average score for gender
egalitarianism practices (“as is”) was 3.37 on the 1-to-7 scale, while the average for gender
egalitarianism values (“should be”) was a noticeably higher 4.51.” (Cornelius N. Grove,
2005) This leads to suggest that even though gender egalitarianism isn’t practiced as much as
societies believe it should be, it at the same time suggests that globally it is something that
societies strive for and perceived as something of value.

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Method

As mentioned before, we interviewed 8 students, who are currently studying in the

Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, and asked them questions related to gender role
perspectives in their country and also from their personal and professional point of view. The
interview questions were planned in the group, and structured to be open questions, so that
we gave the interviewees an opportunity to answer freely to the questions. The interviews
were made face to face, and were recorded with the interviewees permission, or alternatively
the person, who was interviewing, was making notes during the interview. The recorded
interviews were written down in the form of analysis. The answers of the interviews differed
quite a lot, but since the purpose of the study was to get information about how students from
different countries and continents see the asked topics, the results can be seen trustworthy and
the information gained valuable.

12
Analysis
Because the interviews were made by four different persons, we decided to divide the
interviews into pairs and compare the results in pairs.

Interview pair 1
In the first pair, we interviewed a girl originally from Austria who was in her initial
years of study of the degree of Bio and Environmental protection after having abandoned the
career of Economy. This was an interesting case because she used to be in a more “neutral”
type of degree and she had recently started a “male dominated” degree. On the other side, we
interviewed a boy from Mexico, who was studying Finance, which is also considered a
“neutral” type of degree. Comparing both interviews and relating this aspects to the Hofstede
Cultural Dimensions, we realized that both people coming from “masculinity oriented”
societies had similar perceptions in the case of the most important values for their respective
countries. They both agreed that family was one of the most important values in their
country.
It was interesting to know that the girl didn't like the technical part of her degree, but
rather the biological sense of it, although the girl mentioned that “girls are not good with
technical stuff” On the other hand, the boy answered that he didn't find anything that he
disliked about his degree. This explains, somehow, that girls are definitely oriented towards
non-technical subjects even when they have selected “manly tendency” careers. As we
mentioned before, this is probably due to social matters more than biological ones, because
the girl explains in the interview that her female classmates and she are always struggling
with the technical subjects at university. She said that it was embarrassing having the need to
ask for help from the male students of the class.
Later on, we noticed that the girl mentioned that relationships are very important in
her field of study in order to guarantee a good career advancement, while the boy said that
having a good preparation was important. If we compare both situations, we can see that the
girl doesn't consider good preparation as a priority for career advancement, probably because
she feels that her professional field of study is excessively competent and she will not be able

13
to stand out, even if she prepares herself enough. On the other hand, the boy considers that
relationships are not a priority, because he has the confidence that he will not need help from
third parties to find a job.
Moving on, we realized that the girl mentioned that there is definately a gender
equality in Austria, while the boy mentioned that there is also gender equality in Mexico, but
only in the highest income groups of Mexico. This reflects the theory mentioned that high
income countries have a tendency to respect gender equality while low income countries
don't respect it, except for specific income groups. Although there is gender equality in
Austria, the girl mentioned that income equality inside companies in Austria is still related to
gender stereotypes. That is definitely a struggle for high and low income countries.
They both agreed that in their particular countries women are usually in the service
and administrative areas, while men are mostly in the technical areas of the labor market.
Although they mentioned these facts, the girl believed that men could get whatever job they
wanted, even if it was a secretary or administrative role. The boy mentioned, that only men
could get an administrative role in the highest income levels of Mexico. We can see that these
two facts are very well related.
Finally, what was also interesting was that the girl mentioned that she had a male
teacher that did sexist comments in class and that the boys and girls in her class did not
accept the gender stereotypes of this teache. This is contradictory to what we had assumed
that traditional gender roles in “male dominated” fields of study were still predominant in
every country. Also, she confessed that once she had tried to get a job in a company and that
she received a reply from the company saying that they were looking for a male candidate for
that position. After that experience, she expressed that she didn't feel motivated to look for
more jobs. On the other hand, the male student studying Finance confessed that he had never
suffered of discrimination on his career and he didn't think he would ever go through it.

14
Interview pair 2
In the second interview pair we interviewed two exchange students from Finland. The
first interviewee was a 25-year old female studying public law, while the second one was a
27-year old finance student. The fact that they are both studying in university in Finland,
which can be considered as a country, where equality is highly valued, can be seen from the
answers. The interviewees were made separately, and the interviewees didn’t see each others
answers. This is mentioned because their answers are surprisingly similar.
The first thing that came up when comparing the answers, was that they both had
similar future visions: they wanted to get a permanent job in a company, where their
professionality and knowhow would be appreciated. They both mentioned that there had to be
a possibility to raise inside the company’s hierarchy. To do this, they raised up a few factors
that they found important: network, professionality and willingness/ passion to learn new
things and ambitiousness. Challenging tasks and responsible tasks were also lifted up as
important factors.
When asked which factors they could as hinder to their career advancement, they both
answered, that the major and degree they are getting, isn’t going to perfectly match with their
dream profession, but they both continued that in the end they think that it’s more about the
personality than the exact title of the degree that matters. The male student had taken some
courses outside of his degree field to improve his professionality and to get a wider picture of
the field he hopes to work for.
After the discussion about the future visions, we spoke about values. They both
valued honesty, punctuality and diligence high. The female student also mentioned respect
and equality to be a core value for her. The male student didn’t actually mention equality, but
it was clear from his answers that equality was a given for him as well, and he didn’t see it
worth to mention. When asked which cultural values have the biggest influence on their
decisions, they both mentioned honesty straight away. They both also found it important to be
honest to themselves and follow their own values whenever making big decisions in their
lives.

15
 The last big topic in the interview was gender roles. In this topics the answers were in
big scale similar, but there were some nuances between the answers. They both found, that
the equality is internationally on good level in Finland, but that there still are some study
fields dominated by one gender. They both pointed out without being asked though, that both
genders are treated totally equally in education. The male interviewee mentioned, that most of
the top executive members and board members were still men, so equality isn’t perfect in this
case. Both of the interviewees also stated, that gender roles have a big influence in career
choices, as people want to be related to a job which can traditionally be related to his or her
gender. When asked about career advancement, both of the interviewees answered that it can
be harder for a female to get a raise, or that the monetary compensation can be smaller for
women. The female student added after some time, that she thinks that this is changing all the
time to more equal direction, and the male student said that his opinion is that people should
be rewarded based on their results and knowhow/ input, not on their gender.

16
Interview Pair 3
With the third interview pair we interviewed two exchange students from Eastern
Europe who study in London. The first interviewee was a 21-year old female studying
international events management, and the second one was a 21-year old male who studied
environmental economics starting to work in a governmental institution in the water and
energy sector. Their shared background in origins based in Eastern European countries and
then going on to study and work in the future in London lead to frequent similarities in their
answers and opinions.
The interviewees differed in their future plans career wise but also shared some
underlying similarities. First for the differences, which mainly could be attributed to the
difference in their field of study/future occupation. The two fields of international events
management and environmental economics naturally lead to differences to some degree when
considering career advancement with the similarities lying within what they did not mention.
The events field interviewee highlighted that connections and reputation were the key aspects
in securing career advancements, the environmental economics field interviewee focused
more on hard work and commitment. This can be attributed to the different skills and values
that are based within the actual fields themselves rather than gender or other cultural values.
However the similarity was that neither of them mentioned or even initially considered
gender as attribute that would support or hinder career advancement until it was mentioned
later on in the interview. Which deviates from what could be expected from the interviewees
when regarding their countries of origin being in Eastern Europe which generally not very
high on scales such as that of the GLOBE study’s gender egalitarianism in particular in the
“As Is” aspect. However this may be the influence to their current location’s values which
scores higher in the same scale.
Furthermore for both of the interviewees, when asked about their not so immediate
future, they both reflected values of their countries of origin in Eastern Europe. A very
prominent value in Eastern Europe is family and it's importance. When asked about where
they see themselves in 10+ years though, both focused their answers around their careers
however they did not fail to mention that their motivations for such goals were based on their

17
future families. The female interviewee suggested that she would possibly want to have her
own company allowing her the benefit of working from home in order to be able to raise her
children at the same time. While the male interviewee also did not fail to mention that he
would aim to have a stable and profitable position in order to be able to help support his
family.
When asked about the values and gender roles that are displayed in their countries, we
talked both about Hungary and the United Kingdom, they pretty much answered the same
thing for most of the questions in different words. In both interviews when gender was
brought to their attention through direct question about gender, interviewees acknowledged
that it did to varying degrees, depending on the country, has some influence in their careers.
First when talking about Hungary they both stated the same values of family and traditions.
Again agreeing upon when comparing gender to those values that in Hungary women were
perceived to be more valued as the housewife and mother while the men were perceived to be
more valued as the breadwinner. However when asking about themselves they didn’t really
rely these values but rather saw a much more gender egalitarian way. This by talking to them
was evident that it was due to a more international upbringing and studying abroad in
countries with higher gender egalitarian values and practices.
Then when taking these concepts into consideration and setting them in the United
Kingdom their answers were modified but still matched one another, despite their field of
study/work and gender. They both felt that there was a much higher level of gender
egalitarianism in the U.K.. They both expressed that they didn’t feel like gender played a
large part in aspects such as which field is more catered around women and/or men. They felt
like the opportunities were open to both genders regardless of the field. However, when again
asked about whether gender as something that hindered or supported career advancement,
they both acknowledged that in the U.K. they did not feel like it hindered career
advancement. However also acknowledging that like all places in the world even the most
gender egalitarian countries there is still some degree of, possibly even unconscious
supporting factor in career advancement for being male over female. Which they felt could be
due to the general conceptions of people that in the same situation a man would be seen as
assertive while a woman would possibly be seen as aggressive.

18
Interview Pair 4
In the fourth interview pair we interviewed one female exchange student from United
States and one Russian male student who is working on his PhD in Austria. The female
student from United States was 21-year old doing her major in Accounting and financial
planning. The second participant was 25-years old male who was originally from Russia, but
at that moment had been living in Austria for 4 years, doing his academic path in the field of
Economics. The feature of this interview that both participants grew up in the distantly
different cultures but they considered the same values as most important.
Both of interviewee consider themselves as people with mathematical abilities as far
as they are “good with numbers”. In the future, they have similar planes to get a job in the
sphere of finance analyses and in the ten years perspective to settle down with families. For
getting a job the both sure that there are a few important qualities: networking, qualification.
In the case of academic career: publications and famous scientific supervisor.
In the question concerning values female participant put family as the most important.
In addition, she is thinking that making herself happy and take care about own interests also
one of the values. Male participant valued capacity for work and family as well. Nobody of
them mentioned gender equality.
In the part of interview about gender roles both of interview agreed that there are
some field of studies what is more popular among men for example technical, at the same
time women are more tend to social science. However, its equal opportunity in Russia and
USA get a place in both faculties for both genders. The male interview mentioned that
sometimes in some spheres it could be hard to get a job for female. The same opinion has a
female student from United States, also she is argue that it is harder to get a promotion
because of employers thinking that female candidate will more concern about her family
needs then about work. Since Russia is the most educated country in the world (USA today,
2014) that is why more women are educated. Male interview mention that in Russia it is
mostly obligation to get a higher education and many girls going there just for finding a
husband or being on the higher level of “Marriage market”.

19
Discussion (Conclusion)
The study focused on gender roles and attitudes, stereotypes and cultural values. In the theory
Hofstede's study and and the GLOBE study were presented, and used as the theoretical base
for the study. In the interviews students from different countries all over the world were
interviewed to get a image of how their visions in named topics differ from each other, and
which values and roles do they find important in their own culture.
There were few clear differences that came up from the studies. The first was that,
even though most of the interviewees found that equality is on a good level or getting there,
the female respondents mentioned more often that gender may be seen as a hinder at some
point in their careers. Both female and male interviewees found that this is getting better, but
that this could be seen for example in the salary paid paid for similar jobs.
Second thing we found out had to do with the values. In the second interview pair
(Finland) both of the respondents were really valuing permanent job and values as honesty
and punctuality, while in the other interviews the family was lifted as the number one value.
This might be caused by the high education level in the Nordic countries, and it would be
interesting to interview people from the Scandinavian countries to see if their answers would
differ. In Finland it is very common to first raise in the career, and first then start a family.
From all answers could be seen a high level of ambition, no matter of the gender.
When comparing this with the old times, when people were satisfied if there was something
to eat and the kids were taken care of, we can confirm what was said in the theory part of the
evolution and development of gender roles and attitudes: a new generation takes us closer to
a world full of equality and and possibilities.

20
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7. Kizilaslan,Í and Diktaş, Í.O.(2011). ​The Role of University Education in Changing the
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Appendix

Interview guide
Introduction (Ice Breakers)

1. Tell me about your job/your major. What do you do/What do you hope to do with
it?
2. How long have you worked here/How long have you been studying in this major?
3. What things do you like about your job/major? What things do you not like about
your job/major?

Today, I’d like to talk about your career plans.

1. What are your goals for the future in your career?

a. Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years? 10 years? Beyond?

2. What things help your career advancement?

3. What things hinder your career advancement?

a. (with each answer ask): Why does this hinder your career advancement?
b. What things have you done to overcome those challenges?

Now I’d like to talk about your culture, and how it might influence your career plans.

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 1. Where are you from?
2. What are the values in the country or region where you are from?

a. What values do you think are most important?

b. Which Ones do you value most?

3. What about the area where you live now? Is it different than where you grew up? If
so, how are the cultural values different?
4. Which cultural values do you think are most influential on your decisions? Why?
5. How do your cultural values influence your career choices and what you do for a
living?

a. Are there values that are more important or influential than others?

Now let’s talk a little bit about gender roles in the country/region where you’re from

1. How would you describe gender roles in your culture? What things do men usually
do? Women?
2. Would you say that gender roles are equal or not? Why?
3. How do you think gender roles influence education?

a. [only after they have talked about it generally, ask this]: Are there some
majors or degrees that are generally taken more often for men? How about
women?

4. How do you think opinions about gender roles influence career choices in your
country or region? Why is that?
5. What about career advancement? How do gender roles influence that?

a. How do gender roles help career advancement?

b. How do they hinder career advancement?

6. Do you think that finding a job in your degree is influenced by the gender? Why or
why not?
7. Have you seen any gender values influence your own career advancement?

a. Can you give me any examples?

8. Have you seen cultural values influence your own career advancement?

a. Can you give me any examples?

9. Are there any instances in which cultural values, like gender, make it difficult for you
to follow your career path? What things do you do to overcome those challenges?

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 10. Do you feel forced to follow your cultures gender role instead of following your own
will?
11. Do you feel that in some point of your career path you will be
discriminated/harassed / abused due to your gender role?
12. Do you feel that your gender makes it easy or difficult to advance in your career?

Close: Thank you for your time. Today we have been talking about how your culture and gender
affect your career choices. Is there anything else we haven’t discussed about this that would help me
understand how culture and gender influence your career advancement?

Thank you.

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