Koulutus, sukupuolisosialisaatio ja teknologia : näkökulmia segregaatioon

Women and technology have been a recurring theme in our equality projects for the last couple of decades. Many projects have concentrated on how women and girls could be made more interested in technology. The isinterestedness has been explained by the "wrong" attitudes of women and the development has been concentrated on the clarifi cation of the attitudes of women and girls towards technology and modifying them as well as increasing the women and girls' information on the jobs in the fi eld of technology and on working in it. For this purpose, echnology skill courses have been organised, get-acquainted with work periods, and women working in the field have visited schools to offer role models for girls on women working in the fi eld of technology.The perspective of the authors' of the book, "Education, Gender Socialisation and Technology - Perspectives to Segregation" is that the problems of the labour market divided according to gender are not solved by just trying to change women and girls. This is argumented by the fact that the attitudes of women and girls towards technology are not the reason for the gender segregated working life. Rather, the attitudes of girls and women reflect the cemented attitudes on culturally segregated gender socialisation, gender based expectations and gender based exclusions, under whose shadow girls (and boys as well) grow from babyhood and live their everyday lives. In order to obtain permanent change, instead of trying to change girls and women, the environments and values of growth and education, leisure and working life must be changed. Instead of organising special courses to change the attitudes of women and girls in the operating environments in order to dissolve segregation, it is better to pay attention to the organisation cultures. This means changing the structures, operating models, attitude atmosphere, etc. of the operating environment. Each change agent should also look at her/himself and her/his own attitudes. The articles in the book at hand discuss the above perspectives. The book is divided into three parts. The fi rst part discusses the gender hierarchies and learning of gender segregated systems. As environments for discussion, there are both school and working life. The operation of both seems to produce, enforce and sustain the systems and divisions between genders. The second part of the book discusses the production of gender differences and sexual harassment as a tool of control and power in education as well as leisure. One starting point of these articles is the idea according to which the control is the precondition for gender based hierarchy and a means to sustain it. The third part of the book concentrates on gender and technology from different points of view and in different contexts, starting from a girls' school in Viipuri in the 1800's to the university world of the early 2000's. The discussion is also directed towards the connections between globalisation and technology and their tensions from the point of view of gender equality.Upprättat; 2005; 20071214 (kirhon