Career choices are shaped by individual factors such as education and family background, as well as external factors such as labour market and the state of the economy. In other words, career choice can be described as a complex game between the individual and the social system (Agarwala, 2008). According to Özbilgin et al. (2005), micro-agentic, meso-institutional, and macro-structural conditions are prominent influences on young individuals’ career choices. At the micro level individual agency, dispositions, and different forms of capital such as economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital are the key influences of one’s career decision. Forms of capital are the main factors that define the positions and possibilities of the various actors in any field. Economic capital consists of economic possessions that increase the actor’s capacities in the society (Siisiäinen, 2000). Economic capital is directly convertible into money and is related to the property rights of one (Bourdieu, 1986). Social capital is a quality produced by the connections between actors. Voluntary associations, trade unions, and political parties are examples of social capital (Siisiäinen, 2000). In certain conditions, social capital may be converted into economic capital and be institutionalized as a title of nobility (Bourdieu, 1986). Cultural capital is the stock of cultural value embodied in an asset in a tangible (e.g. artworks) or an intangible form (e.g. the set of ideas, practices, beliefs, traditions, and values) which may contribute to the production of future goods and/or services (Throsby, 1999). Objective differences between groups or classes need to be transformed into symbolic differences and classifications that make possible symbolic recognition and distinction. Therefore, symbolic capital is a key factor that enables economic, cultural, and social capital to legitimize. In order words, economic and cultural capital have their modes of existence such as money, exams, and diplomas; whereas symbolic capital exists only in the eyes of other people (Siisiäinen, 2000). The meso level is understood best through the explanation of Bourdieu’s (1990) habitus notion. The notion of habitus is more basically seen as the dispositions that internalize one’s social location and orient one’s actions. For example, some high-end brands have been stuck in the minds of people as bourgeois items with the image of the aristocracy (Noble & Watkins, 2003). At the macro level, structural constraints such as sex, age, and ethnicity inhibit or enhance career choice (Özbilgin, Küskü, & Erdoğmuş, 2005). Briefly, forms of capital and structural constraints are expected to affect the career choices of young individuals. In this regard, teachers play a central role in supporting young people in their efforts to direct their career choices and in influencing their identity (Gushue & Whitson, 2006). When it comes to prospective teachers’ career choices and professional identity, the teacher training process becomes important. The teacher training process provides prospective teachers to reflect on the teaching profession itself, and themselves as teachers in the context of teacher identity (Walkington, 2005). 

This research aims to reveal the views of the undergraduates of a faculty of educational sciences regarding career decisions. The inclusion of micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis allows us to read the individual career choice as a negotiated process, which is socially and historically situated. This layered approach to the phenomenon enables us to see the social reality within its complexity. Research on the career choice of candidate teachers from different backgrounds may contribute to their professional integration into the teaching profession and the development of better career counselling. Considering that European countries are faced with immigration, education shareholders are required to manage multicultural education settings and support whole students to navigate their career choices.

In this study, a qualitative research method has been used to examine prospective teachers’ opinions about their career choices, as future teachers, concerning the teaching profession. The purpose of qualitative research is to improve an understanding of the social world through the interpretation of that world by its participants (Neubauer et al., 2019). In this regard, I adopted the phenomenological method, which is a form of qualitative research focusing on the study of individuals’ experiences within their world. The phenomenological design aims to reveal commonalities in how people perceive and interpret similar experiences (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2006). These commonalities are defined as the core of the participants’ experiences, referring to the joint ground of experience among people (Patton, 2002). Within this context, this study aims to reach the core of a range of experiences regarding the career choices of prospective teachers. It is expected that students who have received teacher education should give their opinions and express their lived experiences about their career choices (Yavuz Tabak et al., 2020). For that purpose, I asked them to write about their ideal profession, whether the teaching profession is compatible with the lifestyle they prefer, whether or not they are satisfied with the teaching profession, how they decided to choose the teaching profession, their 5-year career plan, and their probable career barriers. The study group of this research consists of 139 undergraduates who had been studying at the Faculty of Educational Sciences of Ankara University. I reached 139 students in total, 46 undergraduates from Computer and Instructional Technologies program and 93 students from the Primary Education program. The purposive sampling technique was used to sample the participants strategically because of the participants’ relevance to the research questions. According to the purposive sampling technique, particular participants may hold a variety of important views about their thoughts in question (Campbell et al., 2020). Specifically, opportunistic sampling was employed to capitalize on opportunities to collect data from certain individuals in a short time (Bryman, 2014). I developed 10 open-ended questions within Career Decision Questionnaire to gather research data, benefiting from the work of Özbilgin et al. (2005). Descriptive analysis technique was used which includes coding data, finding themes, organizing codes and themes, and identifying and interpreting findings (Wertz, 2011). Trustworthiness strategies were applied to the research to provide a true picture of the phenomenon under scrutiny (Shenton, 2004).

Findings related to the first theme, an ideal life, show the most frequently expressed answer as a regular life with an income. According to the ideal job theme, the job that makes oneself happy is the ideal job. Answers to the question of whether the teaching profession is compatible with prospective teachers’ lifestyles which they prefer are mostly expressed as compatible because they tend to explain things and teach their proximal environment. The response to the question of whether or not they are satisfied with the teaching profession is that they feel satisfaction with the teaching profession. However, they indicated that if they are not satisfied with the teaching profession one day, they won’t practice it and quit the job. Another notable finding in the fifth theme related to the alternative career plan of prospective teachers’ is to become academic faculty in higher education institutions. The answer to the question of how they decided to choose the profession is based on the modelling of their past teachers. Another notable theme, information resources on their career choice, shows the most frequently expressed answer as both the teachers at high school and the family. According to the 5-year career plan theme, jumping into university as an academic faculty after performing the teaching profession for just a few years is one of the prominent responses. In the ninth theme related to the probable career barrier, the inability to get high scores from Public Personnel Selection Exam is one of the most expressed challenges. Lastly, the matter the prospective teachers are likely to compromise is their social life. In other words, they tend to deprive themselves of their social activities in the pursuit of entering the teaching profession. Overall, the students report micro influences in their career choices rather than meso or macro influences.

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