engleski

The influence of gender, socio-economic and cultural status on educational decisions of students in the Croatian context

Higher education literature points out that there are social and gender inequalities in access to higher education and particularly in the choice of a study course (Baranović, Jugović, Puzić, 2014 ; Van de Werfhorst, Sullivan and Cheung, 2003 ; Reay, 1998). This paper presents the results of empirical research on the influence of gender and socio/economic and cultural status of students on their decisions to continue to higher education and their choice of study field. The research was carried out in 2014 on a sample of 2106 secondary school students in Croatia and it theoretically draws on Bourdieu’s theory of cultural, economic and social capital (1986, 1973) expanded with gender approach (Jugović, Doolan, Baranović, 2016). The results of t-tests reveal that girls have stronger intention to continue to higher education than boys, whereas there is a statistically significant difference in their choice of the study field. Girls are more likely to try to enrol into courses in the social sciences and humanities, biomedicine and health and arts while boys are more likely to enrol into courses in technical sciences. T-tests also show that girls are more concered than boys whether their choice of study is appropriate for their gender. 4 As for the influence of the cultural, economic and cultural capital, hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting girls' and the boys' intentions to continue to higher education shows that significant predictors for girls are: the highest educational level of the mother, reading practices, possesion of books in the household and activities outside of school (ballet or modern dance and foregin language school) and institutional social and non-institutional social capital. Suprisingly, economic capital was not a significant predictor of girls' decision to continue education at the university level. The results are similar for boys. The only difference from girls is in the influence of the cultural capital where in addition to the mother's level of education, the significant predictor of boys' decision to continue to higher education was also the father's level of education. Further, attendance of ballet or modern dance and foreign language schools were not significant predictors either. To conclude, the results of hierarchical regression analysis indicate that gender characteristcs of students intersect with cultural and social capital in shaping their decision to continue education at the university level.

gender, cultural, economic and social capital, educational decisions, secondary school students, higher education.

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