SOCIAL FACTORS INFLUENCING THE FORMATION OF LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES IN FEMALE STUDENTS: A THEORETICAL AND ANALYTICAL STUDY

The article presents a theoretical and analytical study of the social factors that shape the formation of leadership competencies in female university students. Despite the rapid feminisation of tertiary enrolment in Uzbekistan — where the participation rate of women aged 18–23 rose from 5.2% in 2014 to 52.4% in 2024, surpassing the corresponding male indicator — women remain markedly under-represented in managerial and decision-making positions. This asymmetry indicates that access to higher education alone does not automatically convert into leadership capacity or leadership aspiration. Drawing on social role theory, role congruity theory, social cognitive theory, the social capital approach and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model, the study systematises the social determinants of female students’ leadership development into a three-level analytical framework: macro-social (sociocultural gender norms, institutional and legal environment, labour-market signalling, media representation), meso-social (the organisational culture of the university, curricular and extracurricular opportunity structures, gender composition of the faculty, mentoring and peer environment) and micro-social (family expectations, parental leadership modelling, marital and domestic role prescriptions, close friendship networks). The analysis identifies four mediating mechanisms through which these factors operate: leadership self-efficacy, leadership identity, social capital, and the perceived cost of agentic behaviour. The article concludes that the formation of leadership competencies in female students is not a linear function of educational access but the outcome of the cumulative interaction of the three social levels, and that pedagogical intervention is most effective when it simultaneously addresses the meso-level opportunity structure and the micro-level normative environment. A set of practical recommendations for higher education institutions is proposed.