scholarly journals Gendered Vocational Identities – Female Students' Strategies for Identity Formation During Workplace-Based Learning in Male-Dominated Work

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-354
Author(s):  
Lisa Ferm ◽  
Maria Gustavsson
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Vocational Identity ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Work Community ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Male Dominated

Purpose: This article investigates female vocational students' strategies for becoming part of a workplace community, what these strategies are and how they are tied to the formation of vocational identities within male-dominated industrial work. Of particular interest is how female students enrolled on Swedish upper secondary industrial programmes experience workplace-based learning at industrial workplaces as part of their vocational education. The theoretical framework derives from Wenger's concept of community of practice, but his theoretical concept does not explicitly include gender dimensions. Therefore, the concept of community of practice is also combined with Paechter's assumption of gender, whereby femininity and masculinity can be considered as different communities of practice. Methods: The article draws on evidence from a Swedish study based on interviews with 20 female students enrolled on the industrial programme at six upper secondary schools. In this vocational programme, there is a distinct gender distribution and only a small minority of the students on the programme are girls. In the analysis, the focus is on the female students' strategies used during workplace-based learning to become part of the work community which consists almost exclusively of male workers.Findings: The female students deliberately negotiated vocational identities as female industrial workers to become accepted in the male-dominated work community. The findings highlight three specific strategies that the female students used: Acting like gender does not matter, acting like boys (not like drama queens), and acting tough and joking around. The female students' strategies were part of – and tied to – a complex vocational identity formation process that featured contradictory requirements. By taking individual responsibility, they identified relevant information for becoming industrial workers and chose to act like boys. The female students saw no problem with being a girl, yet they struggled with implicit, diffuse and hidden gender structures and prejudices in the male-dominated industrial companies. Nevertheless, they strived for what they perceived to be an attractive vocational identity as industrial workers; it was an alternative, atypically feminine way of being that attracted the female students. Conclusions: The study concludes that female students mostly rely on their individual agency when interacting with others in the male-dominated workplace community. A "gendered vocational identity" is formed which shows that the identity formation of female students is a complex double process, in which vocational and gender identities are formed simultaneously and in parallel within the male-dominated workplace. 

scholarly journals Vocational Students’ Ways of Handling the Academic/Vocational Divide

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Ferm
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Vocational Identity ◽  
Further Education ◽  
Vocational Students ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Types Of Knowledge

Purpose: The focus of this article is on Swedish vocational students’ own thoughts about different types of knowledge and how these thoughts relate to the forming of their vocational identities. The article reports on a study which investigates how vocational students handle the division between theoretical and practical knowledge as they learn to become skilled industrial workers. Theoretical and practical knowledge are often presented as dichotomies in a hierarchy, where theoretical knowledge is more highly valued than practical knowledge. The division between theoretical and practical knowledge is known in research as "the academic/vocational divide". This divide is particularly relevant to vocational students, as they need to deal with both types of knowledge as they navigate between the contexts of school and work.Methods: This study is part of a research project on vocational students’ learning and identity formation. The empirical material is based on qualitative interviews with 44 students enrolled on the industrial programme at Swedish upper secondary schools.Findings: The study revealed three different ways in which vocational students handled the academic/vocational divide: Placing higher value on practical knowledge than on theoretical knowledge, reinforcing the separation between school and work, and selecting theoretical subjects as useful tools for the future. Conclusions: Two conclusions drawn from the study are that students are aware of the status differences and divisions between practical and theoretical knowledge, and that they handle the academic/vocational divide in an active manner. Students make choices that will help them form a vocational identity or that will give them opportunities for further education and alternative careers. This article challenges and contradicts the image of vocational students as unmotivated and unintellectual, instead portraying them as knowledgeable actors who make strategic choices for their future and are active in forming vocational identities within vocations that require deep and advanced knowledge. 

SUCCESS IN ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHY: WHAT FEMALE STUDENTS AND JUNIOR ACADEMICS NEED TO KNOW

Think ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (59) ◽  
pp. 133-142
Author(s):  
Rebecca Roache
Keyword(s):  
Young Female ◽  
Female Students ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
Important Progress

Despite some important progress over the past decade, academic philosophy remains a male-dominated discipline. This raises questions about how established philosophers can best support and advise female students and junior academics in philosophy. We need to avoid encouraging them to adopt a fatalistic attitude to their success (‘Philosophy is sexist, I'll never make it’), while also avoiding encouraging them to believe that their success lies in their own hands and that therefore it must be their own fault if they don't succeed. I argue that we can do this by reflecting on what success in a misogynistic culture looks like, and by guiding young female philosophers to distinguish between the changes that it is possible for them, as individuals, to make, and those that require action by many individuals.

Defending either a personal or an assigned standpoint

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-100
Author(s):  
Timo Salminen ◽  
Miika Marttunen
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Role Play ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Male Students ◽  
School Students ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Personal Opinion ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Support Students

Abstract This study clarifies whether a specific type of role play supports upper secondary school students’ collaborative argumentation. Data consist of 12 dyadic face-to-face and 12 chat debates. Data analysis focused on the quality of students’ argumentation. Comparisons were made between students who defended standpoints at variance with their personal opinions on the topics, between the two study modes and topics, and by gender. When the students defended a standpoint differing from their personal opinion, the male students engaged in counterargumentation more often than the female students. When, in turn, the students defended their personal standpoint, they produced both counterargumentative and non-argumentative speech turns equally often, and their arguments were more poorly elaborated than when they defended an assigned standpoint. The study suggests that role play in which both counterargumentation and students’ personal standpoints on an issue are taken into account is a viable means to support students’ high quality argumentation.

scholarly journals Equity-Minded Faculty Development: An Intersectional Identity-Conscious Community of Practice Model for Faculty Learning

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Costino
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Institutional Transformation ◽  
Practice Model ◽  
Faculty Interaction ◽  
Inclusive Learning ◽  
Faculty Learning ◽  
Working Class Students

Equity-minded institutional transformation requires robust faculty learning.  Research has shown that the single most important factor in student success is faculty interaction.  Positive, supportive, and empowering faculty interaction is particularly important to the success of female students, poor and working class students, and students of color, but most faculty are not prepared to offer the kind of support that has been shown to be most effective for marginalized students.  If institutions are serious about equity and about transformation, then they are obligated to provide professional development that will support the learning necessary for faculty to fulfill these important roles and to support faculty financially or by buying their time to participate in it.  An effective way to do this is to align such professional development with the urgent needs of the campus and their related campus-wide initiatives.  This article describes a community of practice model of identity-conscious professional development that engages faculty in a scholarly approach to the science of learning and evidence-based teaching and curriculum development while at the same time insistently and consistently incorporating critical reflection on and exploration of how systems of power and oppression impact learning. We believe this faculty engagement is key to transforming our institution into a more equitable and inclusive learning environment for students and faculty alike.

Skillful Internet Reader is Metacognitively Competent

2009 ◽  
pp. 654-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carita Kiili ◽  
Leena Laurinen ◽  
Miika Marttunen
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Text Processing ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Upper Secondary School ◽  
School Students ◽  
Information Searching ◽  
Upper Secondary

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interrelations between information searching, textprocessing, information evaluation, and metacognition when upper-secondary school students are using Internet as a source for an essay. Students (n = 24) were asked to search for source material from the Internet in order to write an essay on a given topic. They were asked to verbalize their thoughts while they were gathering their source material. Their verbalizations and actions were recorded and analyzed. The results indicated that students who had difficulties in locating relevant information had to monitor their orientation and keep track of what to do next. Skillful students, in contrast, were able to plan and evaluate their performance, and adjust their activities to the task demands. These students were then able to focus more on elaborative text-processing. Thus, the present study supports the view that constructively responsive reading demands a metacognitively competent reader.

Type of social participation and identity formation in adolescence and emerging adulthood

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-287
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Rękosiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Emerging Adulthood ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Social Participation ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Upper Secondary School ◽  
Lower Secondary School ◽  
School Students ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Transitive Orientation

Abstract This paper presents the results of empirical research that explores the links between types of social participation and identity. The author availed herself of the neo-eriksonian approach to identity by Luyckx et al. (2006) and the concept of social participation types (Reinders, Butz, 2001). The study involved 1,665 students from six types of schools: lower secondary school (n=505), general upper secondary school (n=171), technical upper secondary school (n=187), specialized upper secondary school (n=214), university (n=252), and post-secondary school (medical rescue, massage therapy, cosmetology, occupational therapy) (n=336). The results of the research, conducted with the use of Dimensions of Identity Development Scale (DIDS) and Social Participation Questionnaire (SPQ-S 1 and SPQ-S 2), indicate that transitive orientation increases with age and that, consequently, the frequency of assimilation and integration types of social participation tends to be higher in emerging adulthood in comparison with adolescence. The study showed that general upper secondary school students, contrary to their colleagues from technical and specialized upper secondary schools, did not differ in terms of transitive and moratorium orientation levels from lower secondary school students. The hypothesis about the relationship between transitive orientation and commitment scales was confirmed, whereas the hypotheses concerning the links between exploration scales and both dimensions of social participation were not validated.

Is economics a man’s business? Exploring the long-term effects of the gender gap in economic competencies at the upper secondary level on students’ choice to study economics at university

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Jüttler ◽  
Stephan Schumann
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Secondary Level ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Male Students ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Gender Specific ◽  
Upper Secondary Level

In higher education, across countries, a large share of students choose to study economics. Although there is only a small difference in the share of female and male students in that field, there is robust empirical evidence of a gender gap in economic competencies, showing that male students in most cases outperform female students. There is a broad discussion about the differences in gender-specific socializations that cause this gender gap. However, no research exists on the long-term effects of this gender gap. This study uses longitudinal and representative data of N = 1397 Swiss students (824 female students) to analyse the gender-specific effects of economic competencies at the end of the upper secondary level on their aspiration and decision to study economics. The results show that economic knowledge and interest in economics have a substantially stronger effect on the choice of economics for female students. The aspiration to study strongly mediates these effects. We argue that these results can mainly be traced back to different interests and self-perceptions of skills and abilities in economics caused by gender-specific socialization. Possible implications of gender socialization and discrimination in economics for secondary and higher education and for the labour market are discussed.

scholarly journals Making the Unsustainable Sustainable: How Swedish Secondary School Teachers Deal with Sustainable Development in Their Teaching

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 8271
Author(s):  
Per Gyberg ◽  
Jonas Anshelm ◽  
Jonas Hallström
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Secondary School Teachers ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Sustainable Society ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Upper Secondary Schools

The aim of this article is to investigate how Swedish teachers manage the uncertainty and complexity associated with sustainable development (SD) as a field of knowledge, in relation to the requirements in the school curriculum. Underlying the whole concept of sustainable development is the vision that there is a possible solution to the ecological, economic and social problems created by humans. However, it is not so clear what this solution actually means in practice. The article builds on an analysis of transcribed individual and group interviews with 40 teachers at Swedish lower and upper secondary schools, related to the topic of sustainable development as a field of knowledge. A thematic analysis was carried out by identifying four broad themes, including dominating discourses. The results indicate that there is a lack of vision among the teachers for a future sustainable society, while at the same time, it seems to be taboo to talk about what an unsustainable society might mean in the long run. Presentations of the problems and knowledge of what causes them must always be combined with instructions on how problems can be solved and how pupils can influence their own future and help create sustainable development. The starting point for such a solution-oriented approach to SD is based on an assumption that individual behaviour is essential to achieving sustainable development and thus that individual responsibility is crucial. This focus leads to individual consumer choices, behaviours and lifestyles at the heart of teaching, while progressive, alternative visions and critical perspectives are downplayed.

Intimacy dating goals and relationship satisfaction during adolescence and emerging adulthood: Identity formation, age and sex as moderators

2006 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie J. Zimmer-Gembeck ◽  
Jillian Petherick
Keyword(s):  
Relationship Satisfaction ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Romantic Relationship ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Vocational Identity ◽  
Role Identity ◽  
Role Identities ◽  
Sex Role Identity ◽  
Classic Theory ◽  
Dating Goals

Intimacy and identity are life tasks of the adolescent and emerging adult years. Erikson's (1969) classic theory signifies that young people should show progress in identity formation before intimate relationships are formed. Drawing from a motivational life-task perspective, others (Sanderson & Cantor, 1995) have proposed that there are individual differences in intimacy dating goals, while individuals make progress in identity formation. In the current study, associations among romantic relationship satisfaction, intimacy dating goals, vocational identity, and sex role identity were examined. Participants ( N= 242, age 17 to 21) who had relatively more formed sex role identities were higher in intimacy dating goals than others. Participants with relatively higher intimacy dating goals were more satisfied with their relationships. The association between intimacy dating goals and relationship satisfaction was stronger among (a) older participants, (b) those with more formed vocational identities, and (c) those with less formed sex role identities. Few main or moderating effects of participant sex were found.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document