When Talent is Not Enough: Why Technologically Talented Women are Not Studying Technology

The position of technology education in Finland is quite different from that in most other European countries, even for Finland’s Nordic neighbors. Technology education is incorporated within the scopes of other subjects, such as physics, chemistry, biology, home economics, and craft education. Craft education is, in practice, further divided into technical work and textile work. Although the national curriculum stated as early as 1970 that both technical and textile crafts are compulsory for both boys and girls, traditionally, boys select technical crafts and girls choose textile classes. As technological contents are mostly taught in the technical craft lessons, this division has a negative effect when students select subjects such as physics in upper secondary school and when they make considerations to study in technical universities and science departments in universities. Gender-based segregation and falling recruitment for scientific and technological studies are common phenomena in all the Nordic countries (Sjøberg, 2002). However, paradoxically the inequity is particularly noticeable in Finland where gender equality has been a prime educational goal for decades.