Job Satisfaction of Academics: Reflections About Turkey Filiz Bilge, Yasemin Akman, and Hülya Keleciog ˘ lu International Journal of Educational Reform, Vol. 16, No. 2 / Spring 2007 225 A Turkey is a developing country with a great degree of effort put to- ward modernization and industrialization. As such, education, par- ticularly, higher education for its young generations, is a vital component of these efforts toward catching up with the developed world. Turkish higher education offers 2-year associate, 4-year undergraduate, and graduate degrees. Both private and state universities function under the supervision of the Council of Higher Education, which was established in 1983. Persons with high school and equivalent degrees who wish to pursue higher education take a national university entrance exam, which is held by the Student Selection and Placement Center. Students are placed in higher educational programs according to their scores and to the program choices they make after they learn their scores. Academicians in Turkish universities include professors (assistant, associ- ate, and full), junior faculty (lecturers and lab instructors with doctorates), lecturers (with undergraduate and graduate degrees; e.g., teachers of English as a second language), temporary assistants, and research/teaching assistants. Lecturers teach general and compulsory courses (e.g., Turkish). Temporary assistants can be experts in educational planning and research assistants hired on a temporary basis. Research/teaching assistants contribute to research studies, teaching activities, and administrative work. They hold at least un- dergraduate degrees and are often graduate students. A small portion of these persons hold doctoral degrees. It is worth noting that academics in Turkey are classified as faculty members and academic staff. Faculty members are as- sistant, associate, and full professors. The rest of academics are referred to as academic staff. Given the role of higher education in Turkey’s efforts toward improvement and growth, the Turkish public has high expectations for academics whose mission is educating a well-qualified labor force. As in other sectors, academ- ics’ productivity depends in part on job satisfaction. In fact, Sergiovanni and