Glass Ceiling

As a result of the researches conducted and the postgraduate thesis on “glass ceiling syndrome”, “BIG CEFA” Project is planned based upon the low rate of women administrators and the problems they encounter. Heading up from the fact that the situation observed decreases the possibility of women to become administrators, the project is prepared to be implemented in 5 countries where the rate of women administrators is extremely low, including Turkey in which this rate is 12.2%. Of our partner countries, the rate of women administrators in Italy is 25.8, whereas in Spain it is 16% and in Portugal it is 25.4%.

So as to be able to cope with such problems as gender discrimination and lack of communication with their fellows that they are faced with advancing in their careers, women administrators and women manager candidates who are exposed to glass ceiling syndrome need guidance, social support and motivational services. Within this context, this project is in line with the objective of "improving the demand and take-up through effective outreach, guidance and motivation strategies", which is of the priorities of European Commission in the field of adult education. Besides, it is aimed to minimize the problems faced by improving the management skills and competencies of women managers. With this objective, the project is in line with the priorities of European Commission with the objectives of "Extending and developing educations competences" and "Achievement of relevant and high quality skills and competences". Within this framework, it is thought that the findings and results obtained from this project can draw attention to the importance and seriousness of the matter.

Taking these priorities and objectives into consideration, Intellectual Outputs that are mentioned bellow will be carried out:

First of all, taking all the statistics, facts and needs into account, we are going to design "Mentorship training programme" (O3), "Women educational administrators support programme" (O2), "Case study survey and report" (O1) and "Online interactive training website and online guidebook" (O4). Thus, we aim to minimize the problems that women administrators experiencing glass ceiling syndrome encounter, to let them develop skills in order to be able to cope with the problems they encounter and to make them be employed more in managerial positions.

Therefore we aim to reduce gender discrimination at the management level, break the prejudices and stereotypes directed to women managers, inform women managers in advance about the difficulties they may encounter and thus to develop their ability to cope with problems, improve the working conditions of women, give mentorship to women managers during their first years of management, train mentors by developing a mentorship program so that they provide mentorship support for women managers.

At the end of our project, we aim to make women administrators gain the ability to develop better social skills and develop the right decision-making skills in career planning. The situation analysis obtained, women administrators training programme, mentorship programme and interactive website will be available for use with a free access in many countries around Europe.