Class,gender, and societal inequalities: A study of Nigerian and Thai undergraduate students

This article focuses on the linkages between class, gender and student aspirations in the Nigerian and Thai cultural contexts. Building upon critical and feminist theory that employs class and patriarchal relationships to explain the role of educational institutions, this study examines the educational and career aspirations of 741 university students from two different cultural and academic settings.Based on qualitative and statistical analyses of the perceptions, family backgrounds, and expectations of a random sample of Nigerian and Thai university undergraduates, the study concludes that class and gender affect both university access, and students' educational and career aspirations once admitted to university. However, the results of this study also suggest that the specific effects of class and gender remain dependent upon the cultural milieu of which they are a part.