Gender as a factor differentiating the practice of studying – opinions, evaluations and plans. Research report

The forming of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) of the academic education is a process composed of two dimensions: objective (institutional, legal, organizational, financial) and subjective (psychological, symbolic, axiological). Such action is associated not only with a fundamental reform of educational institutions and the change in its organizational frames, but also with the change of attitudes of educational process participants. In this context it seems that it is important to recognize students' opinions, evaluations and plans. The article aims to present selectively chosen research results conducted on non-public university humanities fields. The objective was to identify students' experiences related to the practice of studying and educational and vocational plans. As it turned out, gender was one of the major factors differentiating the obtained data. Fundamentally, female students are more involved in the study, they generally accept-existing realities of higher education and declare that humanistic studies moderately well-prepared them to cope with the labor market (or alternatively: female students accept the offer of labor after graduation humanities). Female students also intend to work in line with the direction of professional education. While male students are more likely to manifest indifferent attitudes towards studying and they admit to a small own involvement in studying. Both, they are more likely to express critical opinions on the overall system of modern higher education and more clearly recognize the shortcomings of humanistic education. In case of male students the inconsistency between his field of study and professional plans was noticed. Finally, male students are more likely than female to acces PhD studies and to do business after graduation