| dc.description.abstract | Girls in choice of education to practical technology jobs
This master's thesis deals with the school- subject “education choices”, role- models, girls and their choice of education in the 8- 10 grade of junior high school. The reason for this study is the propotion of women in practical technology education and jobs. Politicians agree that the proportion of women in vocational subjects is too low and want to do something about this imbalance. They have wanted that for many previous years as well. Women do not have a real opportunity to choose the jobs they might want. In many cases, women choose occupations based on tradition and they choose occupations that are poorly paid. For example in health and care subjects. In Norway one important school subject is called “educational choices” and the subject applies to the grades 8- 10 of junior high school for one hour per week. The technology interest of girl are low, only approximately 7- 16 percent of the girls choose this education. This thesis is focusing on technology- studies in construction-, electro- and mechanical- disciplines. The gender segregation narrows female possibilities on the job market and may also limit their quality of life. The empiricism of this thesis is based on qualitative interviews with the teachers of the subject “educational choices” in junior high scools and the pupils of their classes in a region of south east Norway. The intervews of the students were collected through a web. based questionnaire, some of those were free text questions. In this master’s thesis the purpose is to understand how the subject “educational choices” and role models influence on the girls choice of education in junior high scool. In what way does the technology- subject appeal to the girls when they are choosing high school and future work, and how does role- modells influence on the girls. The conclusion of the thesis is that both the girls and their teachers are quite satisfied with the subject “educational choice” but there is not a lot of focus at the gendered education and job phenomen. There are some other themes that also are of interest. The girls do not seem to have interest in technology, they want to work with “taking care of people” and other non technology jobs. The second point of interest is that the schools are not using the subject “educational choice” to let girls try out tech- study jobs and visit high school classes in technology. They stay in the classroom and look at different types of education in books and on the internet, some of the schools do not use different role models at all to tell students about tech- jobs in a gendered view. | en_US |
