Social Capital and Career Aspirations: A Case study of Public and Private Universities in Islamabad

Abstract

Social capital, class hierarchies, and gender norms are examples of invisible superstructures that have a significant impact on how Islamabad university students plan, access, and negotiate their career prospects. The institutional, familial, and emotional factors that influence aspiration are examined in this study in two case-study institutions: SZABIST and Bahria University. The two schools exhibit different ecosystems of privilege and constraint, where students' chances are filtered through class-based networks, unofficial peer support systems, and gendered mobility constraints, despite apparent structural and academic cultural parallels. Based on qualitative information gathered from ethnographic interviews, the study reveals how Bahria students, who are frequently part of elite networks, gain access to institutional scaffolding and inherited social capital, which makes it possible for them to pursue a straight-line and validated professional path. At SZABIST, on the other hand, students must navigate systematic neglect and emotional labour while relying primarily on horizontal support from peers, online resources, and trial-and-error attempts. The prevailing institutional narratives continue to undervalue these improvised tactics. Additional obstacles that female students encounter in both institutions include internalized standards, space constraints, and familial control, which make aspiration a highly mediated process. Using an intersectional feminist lens, Coleman's theory of social networks, and Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, this thesis contends that aspiration is a socially regulated and emotionally negotiated practice rather than a personal or meritocratic quality. Therefore, educational institutions are active places where aspirations are made or unmade rather than neutral spaces. This study advocates for policies that acknowledge and address the uneven scaffolding that students inherit and live in, redefining higher education as a place for aspirational justice.