Fatoş Gökşen

Normative vs. attitudinal considerations in breastfeeding behavior: multifaceted social influences in a developing country context

The aim of the paper is to test the basic assumptions underlying the theory of reasoned action (TRA) for exclusive breastfeeding behavior taking place in the rather complicated social environment of women who have just given birth. The paper aims (i) to argue that normative rather than attitudinal considerations are more important in engaging the correct breastfeeding behavior, and (ii) to demonstrate that the TRA concept of social norm should be treated as a multi-layered construct which involves several enabling factors in predicting complex behaviors such as breastfeeding. Data were collected in three phases as part of a prospective cohort follow-up design. The first phase of data collection was conducted in the hospital with mothers after the delivery. Two follow-up questionnaires were administered at the end of the first and second months. Results did not confirm the assertions of the TRA. Logistic regression models and multiple regression analyses indicated that intention and belief/attitude measures taken at the time of birth did not predict end-of-first-month full breastfeeding behavior. Overall, results revealed that intention by itself was not a strong determinant of breastfeeding unless it was conditioned by enabling factors such as social support and subjective norms regarding breastfeeding.

It Takes a Village to Support the Vocabulary Development of Children with Multiple Risk Factors.

Data from a nationally representative sample from Turkey (N = 1,017) were used to investigate the environmental factors that support the receptive vocabulary of 3-year-old children who differ in their developmental risk due to family low economic status and elevated maternal depressive symptoms. Childrens vocabulary knowledge was strongly associated with language stimulation and learning materials in all families regardless of risk status. Maternal warmth and responsiveness supported vocabulary competence in families of low economic status only when maternal depressive symptoms were low. In families with the highest levels of risk, that is, with depression and economic distress jointly present, support by the extended family and neighbors for caring for the child protected childrens vocabulary development against these adverse conditions. The empirical evidence on the positive contribution of extrafamilial support to young childrens receptive vocabulary under adverse conditions allows an expansion of our current theorizing about influences on language development.

Inequality in social capital: social capital, social risk and drop-out in the Turkish education system

This article examines the effects of social capital on the likelihood of dropping out from the compulsory education system (Grades One through Eight) in Turkey. It focuses on the question of whether school-related social capital can provide the means to stay in school in the presence of risk factors such as socioeconomic status, race, or gender that cannot be easily modified. Despite major progress in enrollment rates due to policies enacted in recent years, the overall drop-out rate in compulsory education is close to 15% in Turkey. Data collected from 764 student–mother pairs show that drop-outs are exposed to higher number of social risk factors. We further illustrate that school-related social capital, as measured by quality of in-school teacher–student interactions as well as parental involvement in school, significantly and positively contributes to adolescents’ likelihood of staying in school even in the presence of severe social inequalities.

A Cultural Map of Turkey

There is a growing body of empirical research on national patterns of cultural consumption and how they are related to social stratification. This paper helps to broaden the basis of comparison by focusing on cultural patterns in Turkey, a developing, non-Western, and predominantly Muslim context. Our analysis of cultural tastes and activities using data from a new nationally-representative survey shows three broad cultural clusters that clearly map onto differential positions in the social structure and are largely differentiated by degree and form of engagement with Turkey’s emerging cultural diversity, particularly their orientation towards Western cultural forms. In general, local cultural modalities do not distinguish groups, attesting to the robustness of local culture. The results are discussed in light of previous work on cultural patterns in other national contexts.

An Analysis of Public Programs Related to Women’s Entrepreneurship and Access to Labor Markets

In the recent years, economic performance in Turkey has been praised due to its sustainedgrowth trends, stability and capacity to weather the global financial crisis. However, a number of issues related to the labor market and unemployment trends continue to be the economic and political underbelly to these positive trends. The conspicuously low labor forceparticipation among women over the years deserves special attention among these problems. The objective of this report is to provide an institutional analysis of public policies and programstargeting women’s access to labor markets and entrepreneurial activities. The report seeks to provide a comprehensive inventory of public programs, targeting women’s employment and entrepreneurship and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these programs with respect to their sustainability, institutional commitment, and their ability to address barriers to women’s labor force participation. In Turkey, women’s participation in the labor force has historically been low. While 34 percentof the women were in the labor force in 1990, the rate declined to 26 percent over the courseof the following decade and recovered up to 29 percent by 2012. Cross-country comparisons show that women in Turkey participate in the labor force at a much smaller rate compared to countries in all income groups. This is the case even in comparison with the lower-middle income countries, where women’s labor participation rate is 40 percent. A final focus in this study has been on the initiatives that aim to encourage women’s entrepreneurship. Given that the percentages of women among entrepreneurs in Turkey are even lower than that of women in the labor force, if the barriers to women’s entrepreneurial activities are removed, it appears that there is substantial room for improvement. This report sets its goal as interrogating in a holistic manner, programs’ objectives, contents,and ability to address problems standing in the way of women’s labor force participation. The aim of the report is not to conduct an impact analysis of these public programs, but to provide an extensive inventory of institutions and the specific departments and the programs that are directly responsible to carry out the public policies on the issue of women’s employment and entrepreneurship. Programs evaluated in this report were chosen on the basis of their scope both in terms of their targets and funding schemes. Local programs with very narrow scopes were not taken into the inventory. Only the programs, which target to create new employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for women with a wide sphere of influence, were inc luded. The public programs covered in this report can be also assessed based on the sectors ofeconomic activity in which women’s employment and entrepreneurship is promoted: Our report shows that the programs carry the danger of repeating existing gendered divisions of labor and the ensuing capacity to access the labor market. For long-term positive results inchanging existing horizontal and vertical segregations in the market, there should be more focus on how to change gendered assumptions about divisions of labor within the programs’design.

Are we 'really' connected?: understanding smartphone use during social interaction in public.

Excessive smartphone use has negative effects on our social relations. Previous work addressed this problem by allowing users to restrict their smartphone use. However, as this strategy requires users to have high levels of self-regulation, it may not be effective for individuals without an explicit intention to change their behavior. We propose an alternative approach to this problem, i.e. identifying ways of reducing smartphone use without restricting its use. We illustrated this approach with a study examining smartphone use during social interaction in public settings. Based on four unstructured observations in different coffeehouses and three exploratory focus groups with different age groups, we identified two themes in relation to smartphone use in public settings and discussed their implications for designing solutions that aim to enrich social interaction without limiting smartphone use.

School to work or school to home? An analysis of women's vocational education in Turkey as a path to employment

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on womens vocational education in Turkey as a gendered and gendering process. Cultural norms about womens role in society, a vocational curriculum that echoes these norms, and a labour market with gender inequalities constitute the background against which women formulate their vocational preferences and seek pathways into the labour market. We use the literatures on gender and vocational education, school-to-work transitions, and gender bargains to analyse data from qualitative fieldwork with students and graduates of girls’ vocational high schools. First, we scrutinize how students choose vocational tracks. Our findings point to the presence of a gendered bounded agency by students and graduates, according to which their choices echo traditional gender norms. Secondly, we discuss the transition from school to work, during which they are faced with gender prejudice in the labour market. Finally, we show how that process turns into a ‘school-to-home’ transition whereby graduates become homemakers.