Gendered socializations and critical reflexivity in an Elite University in Lebanon

ABSTRACT

Gender inequality in education has been well documented in the literature, in light of family and school socialization. We build on this literature and focus from a micro sociological perspective on the emergence of ‘critical reflexivity’ in the specific case of a group of university scholarship students in Lebanon. Through observations and in-depth interviews, we identify gender differentiated prior dispositions that influence university experiences of those students and their career plans and demonstrate that critical reflexivity involves a process of negotiation between two fields. Family control was associated with success in studies at the expense of the social aspects of university. Gendered norms also reflected on their choices of major. Furthermore, in examining cases of emergence of reflexivity, we find that prior socialization experiences, namely degree of social conservatism, experience of change as well as social heterogeneity, influence the development of ‘critical reflexivity’ as students encountered a new social environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender inequality
• higher education
• family practices
• habitus
• dispositions
• critical reflexivity

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my great appreciation to Elisabeth Longuenesse, my research supervisor, for her patient guidance, encouragement and useful critiques of this research work. I wish to thank Olivia Samuel, member of my dissertation jury, for her valuable comments, which inspired the central theme of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Maissam Nimer obtained her PhD in Sociology from Paris Saclay University, France, in July 2016 focusing on understanding the mechanisms of social inequalities behind higher education selection in Lebanon. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Migration Research Center at Koç University, working on a project which looks at access to higher education and transition to employment among Syrian youth in Turkey. Her research interest include: social mobility, gender, education, migration and language.

Notes

1 In the public sector in Lebanon, it is not possible to carry out the entire school trajectory in the same school. Some schools include primary and complementary, others complementary and secondary or secondary alone.