What’s Expected of Men in Turkish Culture: Perceptions of Male University Students
Abstract
The aim of this study is to examine the opinion of male university students in Turkey about the expectations that are presented from society as men. For this purpose, firstly focus group interviews were conducted with 10 students and some questions were asked to identify how they are considering being men in Turkey. And then as an instrument of the study a questionnaire was designed by researchers, including socio-demographic characteristics and one open-ended question considering the answers given in these interviews. The study group was composed of 206 participants that were selected with the using convenience sampling and snowball sampling. The data gained from participants were analyzed use of content analyzes. In the analyzing process, data is arranged and coded by researchers and themed on the basis of codes and categories that have been identified in themes and then distributions are displayed by frequencies and percentages. Then data were interpreted. According to the results, three themes explain society’s expectations from men: fulfilling various responsibilities about life (282; %44, 69), fulfilling social responsibilities (245; %38, 83) and having essential personal qualities (104; %16, 48). The findings were discussed in the light of the literature and some suggestions were presented.
Keywords: Gender, masculinity, Male gender role.
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