Özet:

In Turkey, vocational high schools can be associated with various advantages that increase the employment possibility and recognize the opportunity to get rid of poverty by providing professional and technical skills to young people from most low-income groups. These schools can also be subject to a number of social and economic disadvantages, such as a barrier that prevents the upward social mobility of the young population in the urban area or a poverty trap that translates inequality from generation to generation. In the context of the advantages and disadvantages, this research aims to reveal the students’ opinions about the professional high schools they are studying and to evaluate these opinions within the framework of basic sociological approaches. The research was conducted in December 2016 and January 2017 at 7 professional and technical Anatolian High Schools associated with the Eskişehir Provincial National Education Directorate. Numerous data from 796 students who studied in class 12 were collected with qualitative data with survey technique, while 9 teachers, 8 graduates, 8 students were collected with semi-configured interview technique from 25 people. The majority of students find professional high schools more advantageous in terms of the employment speed and facility, the ability to hold in the labour market, the ability to enter the pre-graduate programs. Students under the research scope see professional high schools as the easiest, fastest and cheapest way to find a job in the competitive labour market in the urban area. The Anatolian high school is considered beneficial in terms of getting better scores in the university entrance exam. For students, the Anadolu High School means a better working life, relatively high wages, better working conditions, and a high social status in terms of facilitating entry to higher education programs at the bachelor’s level. When the findings are evaluated as integrated, it appears that for the majority of students, professional high schools are in a position where hope and disappointment intersect.