Gender Bias in Nordic Vocational Education

Abstract

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.