Ambition and aspiration as drivers of social inequality? - Einzelansicht

Ambition and aspirations, i.e., the desire and determination to reach a particular goal and achieve something significant, is an important driver for success, personal achievement, and recognition. Ambition and aspirations therefore are major drivers of individuals’ professional success and organizations’ economic well-being. Is the lack of ambition and aspirations hence also is a potential driver of social inequality? With the entrance of cohorts born after the mid-1990s into the labor force an ”end of ambition” has been diagnosed. Millenials and GenZers are commonly stereotyped as lazy and quiet quitters, who only value their work-life balance and to not contribute sufficiently to organizations economic well-being. Likewise, women seem to not want to ”lean in”, shy away from leadership positions, and instead prefer to have jobs that are easily compatible with family responsibility. Similar assessments have also been made for individuals with low education and low social class background. The aim of this research-focused MA class is to understand whether, to what extent, and why different socio-demographic groups vary in their levels of ambition and types of aspirations. In addition to improving participants’ conceptual knowledge about the vaguely-defined terms ”ambition” and ”aspirations”, they will also gain a deeper understanding of the methodological challenges associated with operationalizing these constructs and measuring both the antecedents and consequences of ambition and aspirations.

Active course participation (prepration and handling of one seminar session) and term paper of 12-15 pages.

Advanced MA students