| dc.description.abstract | This study focuses on gender patterns in interactions between boys and girls in
home and consumer studies, in a Swedish school context. The survey was
conducted at the beginning of 2000, with a gender perspective as the main point
of departure. The aim of the study was to investigate how gender orders are
(re)created in the context of home and consumer studies, which traditionally has
a strong female genderization, and where there is at the same time a definite
strive towards gender equality. The empirical data in the thesis are based on 21
observations from home and consumer studies, in nine primary schools in the
middle and west of Sweden. A total of 131 eighth and ninth class pupils
participated, 64 boys and 67 girls. Data were selected from two different studies,
a process study, which formed a part of the 2003 national evaluation of home
and consumer studies, and a field study.
In spite of the variety of theories in the field of gender, there was a discrepancy
between the gender theories applied and the empirical data. An additional
difficulty was the fact that female and male sex, are associated with traditional
values. Therefore, the concept of biological “sex” has been problematized and
defined as “the physical body”. The distinction between gender as a belief and
the physical body forms the basis of a principle that has been developed, the
Gender handling procedure, which involves integration of the biological and
social constructionist perspective. Furthermore, the Gender process is a
theoretical model which has been developed. It deals with conceptions to
manage gender and the purpose is to express how pupils act and react in
response to the context and change their roles (i.e. beliefs) to suit female or male
coded rooms. I have also been inspired by Weber’s “ideal types” and use an
instrument called hyper character to identify patterns of qualities in social
situations.
The results show that pupils change their characters which represents the change
of roles in different contexts and situations. The navigation of gender beliefs is
called “gender zapping”. Four hyper characters, Clown, Marionette, Prudorderly
and Wallpaper flower, representing different roles adopted by the pupils, were
used to highlight some gender orders identified in the empirical data. When
problematizing the traditional female genderization of the classroom, the
definitions safe or mined ground, was used to describe the different conditions
for boys and girls. For the boys, the ground is mined in ordinary home and
consumer studies lessons. This means that they have to live up to the male norm
of superiority, cannot be “unmanly” and on no account express “femininity”.
These reactions appear to take place on an individual level and a boy’s social
position influences whether or not he is criticized. Girls cannot be reprimanded
for being deviant, because they are already on safe ground, since the female
norm applies in home and consumer studies, when the element of competition is
lacking. But the context changed when the room became male coded by the
introduction of an element of competition. Pupils assumed different roles and
the boys were also allowed to behave according to the female norm, i.e. they
were permitted to be diligent and orderly without being ridiculed. While the
gender order control for the boys conflicts with the content of ordinary home
and consumer studies lessons, it works in the same way for girls. | en |
