Professional Preferences in the Ethnic and Economic Context of Poland and Turkey

The main objective of the study is to assess the relationship between the system of student values in the multicultural aspect in relation to professional preferences. For this purpose, Polish and Turkish students were analyzed. The groups were further separated into those studying in the faculties of science and humanities. The social learning theory of Bandura serves as the foundation for the study of occupational preferences (Strelau, 2003). The research includes John Holland’s Theory of Career Choice (RIASEC) (Holland, 1970a, as cited in O’Shea & Harrington, 1972), Schwartz’s theory of basic values and its structure (Schwartz, 2012). Students’ values are expected to be directly related to their choice of studies based on the assumptions of Holland’s Theory of Career Choice (RIASEC) (O’Shea & Harrington, 1972). Also, the research by Berring et al. (2015), Sababa and Benson (2010), and the author’s interviews with the respondents are used to support the hypothesis that the Turkish students’ group has greater preferences for choosing science than the Polish students’ group.