With Her Research, She Gives a Voice to the Youth

Prof. Dr. Gülden Demet Lüküslü, who was considered worthy of the "TÜBİTAK-Horizon 2020 Success Award" thanks to her studies and international research on young people, therefore making her name known, Dr. is currently preparing to start a new project with some universities in Europe.

“The Youth Are Questioning Whether There Will Be a World Left for Them”

Prof. Dr. Gülden Demet Lüküslü, head of the sociology department in Yeditepe University is an academic who became the voice of the youth and who looks for a solution for their problems with her research and projects. Between 2015 and 2018, she carried out the Erasmus+ project called "Partispace" funded by the European Union, adressing the ways the youth participate in the city. Thanks the this project she was qualified to receive the "Horizon 2020 Success Award" which is given by TÜBİTAK. The follow-up project "Partibridges" was a continuation of the first project. Prof. Dr. Demet Lüküslü, who continues her joint researches with European Universities, Dr. is starting a project called “Opening Universities for Young People in Europe – OUYE” next month, where she and her team is going to work on including the disadvantaged youth to the university life in Europe.

Come and let's hear Prof. Dr. Demet Lüküslü who says "The youth, even the children are questioning whether a world will be left for them", from her own words.

What was your reason for choosing Yeditepe University for an academic career?

I have taught at different universities on a part-time basis, but I have spent all of my tenured academic life at Yeditepe University. I have been working at Yeditepe University since 2006, the date when I finished my doctorate. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to teach at other universities in the field of Youth sociology, which is my main field of study, so that I could differentiate my experiences. I have taught courses related to the field of youth at the Sociology departments of Boğaziçi and Galatasaray University and the Sabancı Department of Cultural Studies. The story of my beginnings at the Yeditepe University is owed to my respected teacher, Prof. Dr. Yaşar Gürbüz, who is the founder and department head of Marmara University Public Administration Department (French Language). I am fortunate enough that I had the opportunity to work together with my teacher Yaşar Gürbüz at the French Department of Political Science and International Relations of Yeditepe University, where he was the founder.

Yeditepe University is celebrating its 25th year. What would you like to say about this?

I have witnessed the last 15 years of Yeditepe University which celebrates the 25th year of establishment. Maybe I haven't been working here since the establishment of our university, but since I have been a researcher from the first establishment of the Department of Sociology, I have had the opportunity to observe how the department and the institution was constructed bit by bit, what kind of labour was behind its establishment. Within these 25 years, Yeditepe University has been making an important journey (Of course I am not only talking about the academic staff here,
I am talking about all of its workers) and this journey in question still goes on. The solid ties the school established with the students and graduates who are the actual owners of the university and the feeling of belonging which is experienced mutually is so important!

What was your reason for choosing the field of Sociology?

I am a graduate of Üsküdar American High School, and departments such as Sociology and Political Science are already very trendy departments among our high school graduates. For this reason, I had positive thoughts about the field of Sociology since high school. However, since I had dreams of working in foreign affairs due to the activities such as the Model United Nations, which I attended when I was in high school, I aspired to learn French as well as enrolling in departments such as Political Science and Public Administration. At the university, in the Department of Public Administration, you take courses in different fields and that was when I realized I loved sociology and had a sociology-oriented mindset. With this realization, questionings whether I would continue with sociology or whether do I want an academic career, began. Since I preferred French sociology to Anglo-Saxon sociology, my dreams of getting a master's and a doctorate degree in France began to come into being and therefore I decided to study sociology in my MA and Doctorate.

“I'm Trying to be Fair to Myself”

Do you have a life motto? Were there any principles that you set for yourself on the path that led you to success?

What we call success is quite a relative thing, and it depends on who defines what as success. I am trying to progress by setting goals for myself as much as I can and setting higher goals as I reach those goals in question. However, when I have difficulty achieving these goals, I also think about environmental factors and try to be fair to myself. And when I achieve the goals, I try as hard as I can to make sure that these successes doesn't come back to me as arrogance. I think it is more valuable when achievements make you a more modest, self-aware individual regarding their achievements and mistakes. Similarly, success is more valuable when a common struggle for it is made and when it is shared, rather than trampling on others for the sake of it.

Have you encountered any difficulties in your career process? How did you overcome all this?

Looking back, of course, I faced many difficulties, like everyone else. However, I think the most difficult period was the period when I decided whether I really wanted an academic career or not. Once I had made my final decision, I decided to move forward regardless and didn't let anything dampen my spirits. Of course, difficulties and obstacles will find us in life's every corner, but I think it makes it very easy for us to be confident in how we choose to deal with these difficulties, in what we are doing, and in our decisions when trying to deal with these difficulties in question.

“Literature, Theater and Cinema are My Passions”

What feeds you? Have these nourishments contributed to your business life?

Literature has been a savior for me since I learned to read and even before that, thanks to my mother's reading-aloud sessions. In the same way, watching theater has always been a passion as well. The plays that we played, directed and wrote as Drama Club members in high school fed this passion, and this passion, fortunately, still continues as a spectator of plays. Similarly, cinema as a spectator, is one of my passions. It is a great pleasure for me to watch it, especially in the movie or theater halls where I can see the reactions of other viewers as well. I am very lucky that sociology is nourished a lot by literature, theater and cinema, and these passions also feed and enrich me as a sociologist. In addition, even though I don't put sports at the center of my life, I always see it as relaxing, helping me cope with stress, and I try to make a place for it somewhere in my life. Since my doctoral years, walking and running have been the main activities that have especially given me comfort.

Were there any people who inspired you?

There are so many people in our lives who touch our souls, and each of them have such a significant impact on us... I realize that there are people who perceive as exemplaries in my professional life and in my private life, regarding how I should do certain things, as well as people who inspire me about what not to do. And with your permission, I choose not to answer this question because I am afraid of forgetting the people who have left a mark on my personality.

“We Will Work In Order To Open University Education to Disadvantaged Groups”

You have also worked on important international projects within our university. Can you tell us about these projects?

As the department of sociology, between 2015 and 2018, we have been a partner in the HORIZON 2020 project, PARTISPACE, funded by the European Union. Thanks to this study, which focused on the ways in which young people participate in the city, we had the opportunity to conduct mutual research with researchers from different European universities. I conducted the Turkey part of this research and together with the researcher Berrin Osmanoglu, who worked with me, we have conducted a rigorous study. As these researches are supported by TÜBITAK as well, we were also qualified for the Horizon 2020 Success Award given by TÜBITAK.

We have loved working with partners from Europe with the PARTISPACE project so much that we have continued our academic cooperation by doing Erasmus projects in the European Union. After the end of the PARTISPACE project in 2018, we started the PARTIBRIDGES project, that is, the project of establishing bridges of participation with young people, aiming to put into practice what we have learned about young people in research and to prepare online training modules. We will be finalizing this project soon, which we have been working with partners from the UK, France and Portugal,together with our teacher Banu Koçer Reisman and our research assistant dear Duygu Demiray, who also teaches sociology of education courses in our department. Our project is to end at the end of August. As of February 2021, we, as the same team, will be starting the European project entitled “Opening Universities for Young People in Europe”, where we will think about issues such as opening university education to groups with disadvantages and how to make room for these groups in question in universities.

“The Pandemic Has Increased the Anxiety of Young People”

The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has profoundly affected our lives. How did the pandemic affect your field of study?

Since every issue that is happening in society is our field of study for us sociologists, sociologists have had the opportunity to think a lot about the effects of the pandemic. We also thought and discussed this semester with our undergraduate and graduate students in the Department of Sociology. It seems that we will continue to think further. I have been especially interested in the change of the cycle of everyday life with the pandemic since I have recently started working on the Sociology of Everyday Life (I am also giving an elective course with this name in the Graduate School). However, young people are unfortunately one of the losers of this period. This period has deeply affected both young people in education and young people looking for a job, and for this reason, it has further increased the anxiety of young people about the future in our country, where youth unemployment rates are already quite high.

2020 has become almost a year of tests for humanity. Considering the possibility that we will face many tests such as this in the coming years, how do you think humanity should prepare for these tests that it is likely to face?

Yes, it looks like these tests will continue. Since we sociologists are focused on identifying problems and analyzing the basis of problems, we do not always focus on the question, "What is to be done?" But our global world gives signals that the existing system cannot continue like this and at such times, we also know that the necessary ground is being prepared for important transformations to occur. But right now, there is a great debate about whether this transformation will be positive or negative for humanity. But the emphasis on “humanity” in your question is very important, of course. Yet, we are far from such an understanding that the word "humanity" implies in the world in which we live. It will be a fundamental step to unite on fundamental issues, as we have common interests, we must seek compromise on some things if we want to live together for we have responsibilities not only to other people, but also to other species and nature. As far as I can see, children and young people are much more sensitive, especially when it comes to subject such ecology and animal rights, and therefore albeit it seems quite difficult to keep hope alive, I am still hopeful thanks to them.

“Anxiety about the Future Turns into an Anxiety about Whether We Will Have a Future”

What do you think are the most important problems in the world today? What solutions can be provided for these problems?

With the guidance of the previous question, the topic came to environmental issues, and of course this topic is very important in itself. As I mentioned earlier in the field of youth sociology, which is also my field of study, young people and even children are experiencing anxieties about the future and are questioning whether there will be a world left for them. Anxiety about the future turns into anxiety about whether we will have a future or not.

However, social inequalities have always been an important issue for us sociologists. The 21st century and the pandemic period made these inequalities even more visible, even more deep. For this reason, I think it would not be wrong to note that the theme of inequality with its different layers is very important and that it underlies many problems.

What are your predictions about the future of your field of study?

I think that the importance of sociology as one of the basic social sciences has gradually became clearer, albeit this process continues gradually. Moreover, when we look at the developments in the world, we see that there is an interdisciplinary approach in different projects in different sectors, engineers and social scientists come together and conduct studies in a way that we are not usually very familiar with, etc.  In this sense, I think that we are living and are going to live in a period when different sectors feel the need for a sociological perspective more and more.

What does traveling mean to you? Considering Turkey and the Globe, what is your favorite city and what is your favorite country?

One of my favorite things in my academic career (of course, I'm talking about the pre-pandemic period) is that it allows us to travel through congresses, conferences, and it also allows us to travel while working on international projects at the same time. As for my favorite city... I won't say that I like it the most, but despite the fact that I had a lot of complaints about it while living there as a student, the city that I miss the most when I do not visit it for some time and I think I know the best after Istanbul, is Paris.

What would you recommend for young people who want to become researchers?

I am aware of the fact that the younger generations have an aversion regarding advices and suggestions so I am trying my best to stop myself when it comes to giving suggestions and advices to them, despite this being very difficult, contrary to what most adults do. But I think I would have told the ”young" Demet that being a researcher is a start to one's own curiosity, so she should keep wondering and keep asking questions. After all, doing research means actually asking questions and looking for answers to those questions.