This study concentrates on the place of education in the welfare of individuals. Departing from a set of assumptions discussed in the following section, it aims to uncover how university students experience the transition from university to employment. In particular, it will investigate how the students cope with the transition process in general and what sort of strategies they employ to improve their access to employment, in particular. The empirical focus of the project encompasses around 400 students of the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences (FEAS) of Middle East Technical University (METU), who will graduate in the Spring Term of 2010/11.

The major premise of the project proposed here is that individuals’ welfare is generated in three sites, namely, “social networks”, “public services” (including education), and the “labour market” (cf. Mingione, 1996). Education is located at the intersection of those three sites, and deserves closer attention especially if we are examine the social impact of public policies.

The empirical analysis will depart from the following initial observations and inferences:  

a)      The level and quality of education received has a capacity to determine the prospects of welfare for individuals, especially in urban areas where generation of material welfare largely depends on employment-based income.  

b)      The level and quality of education offered in Turkey, mainly by the public sector, is differentiated around a hierarchy of educational institutions both at the secondary (high school) and tertiary (university) levels. In its current form, the secondary and tertiary levels of education in Turkey are more accessible to the students from middle-class and, especially, higher-middle class families (Gür and Çelik, 2009).

c)       As the students and their families make their decisions for further education, their preferences are also influenced by the overall social worth attached to different fields of academic and professional specialisation. This social worth is closely associated with the nature of future employment expectations of the students and their families. This assumption runs both for the faculty-based divisions in a university, as well as for the department divisions in a faculty.

d)      Even if the students are exposed to the same level and quality of education, their chances of improving access to employment are not even. This unevenness is caused by three factors, namely, the “social/class background of the students” (cf. Wegener, 1991), “hiring procedure of the public sector, still the largest employer in Turkey”, and the “demand structure in the labour market” .

e)      The education and socialisation process the students have gone through will turn their employment process into a negotiation between their families’ priorities, the gam of the job opportunities available (and the qualities expected from the university graduates) and the worldview they have cultivated during their university education.

While the first two observations can be supported by available empirical studies, the rest need to be tested through detailed empirical research. Hence, they will constitute the main hypotheses of the research.

Ball, S.J. (1993) “Education Markets, Choice and Social Class: the market as a class strategy in the UK and the USA.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 14(1): 3-19. Brown, P. (1995) “Cultural capital and social exclusion: some observations on recent trends in education, employment and the labour market”, Work, Employment and Society 9(1): 29-51. Görün, F. (1997) “Higher education and unemployment in Turkey”, ERC Working Papers 97/1, Deparment of Economics, METU. Gür, B. and Z. Çelik (2009) Türkiye’de Milli Eğitim Sistemi: Yapısal Sorunlar ve Öneriler. SETA Report (No:1 – October 2009). Halsey, A.H. et al. (eds.) (1997) Education: Culture, Economy and Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hatcher, R. (1998) “Class differentiation in education: rational choices?”, British Journal of Sociology of Education 19(1): 5-24. Heckhausen, J. (2002) “Introduction: transition from school to work; societal opportunities and individual agency”, Journal of Vocational Behavior 60: 173-177. Heinz, W.R. (2002) “Transition discontinuities and the biographical shaping of early work careers”, Journal of Vocational Behavior 60: 220-240. Livingstone, D.W. (2009) Education and Jobs: Exploring the Gaps, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Lynch, K. and C. O’Riordan (1998) “Inequality in higher education: a study of class barriers”, British Journal of Sociology of Education 19(4): 445-478. Mingione, E. (1996) “Introduction”, in E. Mingione (ed) Urban Poverty and the Underclass. Blackwell. Schoon, I. (2002) “Teenage aspirations for future careers and occupational outcomes”, Journal of Vocational Behavior 60: 262-288. Şenses, F. (1999) “Yüksek Öğretimde Öğrenciler: ODTÜ İktisat Bölümü öğrenci profili”, METU Studies in Development, 26 (1-2): 179-201. Şenses, F. (2005) “ODTÜ İktisat Bölümü öğrenci profili – yeniden”, METU Studies in Development, 32 (1): 185-198. Wegener, B. (1991) “Job mobility and social ties: social resources, prior job, and status attainment”, American Sociological Review 56: 60-71. Whitty, G. (2001) “Education, social class and social exclusion”, J. Education Policy 16(4): 287-295