To Be or Not To Be Ambitious.Understanding the Gendered Nature of Adolescent Ambition

Abstract

Contrary to what we may think, in scientific research, there is no unified definition of the concept of ambition. This not only makes it impossible to compare findings across studies, but it may also explain why studies show highly fragmented results when it comes to gender differences in ambition. Furthermore, ambition has primarily been studied in adults and we lack knowledge of ambition in adolescents. Traditionally, ambition is measured through specific end-goals that are deemed as ambitious by society such as power, wealth, and prestige. However, people desiring other goals than within these areas may be just as ambitious but are not included due to the historical development of ambitious goals being defined by men, for men, in a man’s world. To a large extent, the goals men and women choose are often dictated by gender stereotypes, social norms and gender expectations. Thus, using specific end goals as a way of defining ambition carries inherent gendered bias. Another way of defining ambition is through certain behavioural traits such as competitiveness, desire for success, or self-esteem. But there is a lack of knowledge about whether ambition is the same as such behavioural traits or whether it is a conceptually distinct factor. However, as with goals, behaviour has a gendered aspect that dictates which behavioural traits are acceptable for men and women. As such, women are often penalized for expressing a desire for power or being highly competitive as these traits are seen as predominately masculine. Finally, because we lack a unified definition of ambition, measuring ambition in adolescents varies greatly from using future career plans and the desire for having a high income in the future to the desire for certain educational choices and grades as indicators. No studies have explored qualitatively how adolescents understand and conceptualise ambition. Qualitative studies on adults indicate, however, that the way we traditionally understand ambition, is changing. In this thesis, the aim is to explore how adolescents define and conceptualise ambition through a qualitative study (Chapter 2 and 3) and to locate possible gender differences in ambition through an experiment (Chapter 4) and quantitative studies (Chapter 2 and 5). Drawing on theories from goal-setting and goal orientation combined with social role theory and gender similarity hypothesis, our findings provide knowledge about how Danish adolescents view ambition and show that gender differences in ambition are more nuanced than we often tend to think. Our findings further debunk the myth that educational choice is equal to ambition level and show that adolescent ambition is not just about specific end-goals or only about power and prestige and upward progression. Ambition is seen as having a long-term goal and the distance from your starting point to your goal is essential – the wider the distance, the more ambitious, but the goal can be anything.