 |
The
topic of vocational education and gender has not been of high
interest in Nordic countries during last years. On the one hand,
the focus has moved to issues like the knowledge society and
the competitiveness of individuals and industry in the globalising
economy, on the other hand, the strengthening feminist and post-modernist
discourses about cultural construction of gender have had marginal
interest in vocational education. The article aims at showing
that there are historical, anthropological, sociological, philosophical
and educational studies, which could revitalise research on
vocational education and gender, proceeding from the previous
phase, when the focus was on sex-segregation in the labour market
and education system. In the beginning of the article, vocational
education in the Nordic countries is characterised from the
sex-gender perspective, with special focus on Finland. After
this, some examples from efforts to overcome and to explain
the gender bias are described and deficiencies are discussed.
Thirdly, a «cultural approach» for discussing gender
bias is suggested. In the closing section, the possibilities
of de-gendering vocational education are questioned. The main
message of the article is that in order to revitalise research
on vocational education and gender, we need to reflect them
in a wider cultural context and include the perspectives of
both sexes or genders (or the whole sexual and gender order)
in our analyses. |
|
