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Perception by French students of the gendered nature of material artifacts studied in technology education

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Abstract

Many studies have shown the importance of the socio-cultural factors that lead girls to desert scientific and technological courses. Over a long period, the contents of the French technology education (TE) college curricula may well have contributed to strengthening the feeling among girls that this discipline was better suited to boys. The choice of technical artifacts that embody the knowledge taught could be partially responsible for this. Our investigation was conducted in two stages. Firstly, we made an inventory of artifacts presented in four TE schoolbooks for the 6th grade. Secondly, we submitted this list to a population of 98 girls and boys (12–14 years). Our results indicate that most of these artifacts were categorized as mixed. However, those that are classed as masculine are more numerous than feminine one’s. They are also more prevalent among girls and their number increases with age. The grouping of these artifacts by families also shows gender differences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aix-Marseille Université, ENS Lyon, ADEF EA 4671, 13248, Marseille, France

    Andreucci Colette

  2. Aix-Marseille Université, ADEF EA 4671, 13248, Marseille, France

    Chatoney Marjolaine

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  1. Andreucci Colette
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  2. Chatoney Marjolaine
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Correspondence to Chatoney Marjolaine.

Appendix

Appendix

Excerpt from the book Butler (1990). Gender trouble—feminism and the subversion of identity, preface, viii–ix. “The foundational categories for sex, gender, and desire as effects of a specific formation of power requires a form of critical inquiry that Foucault, reformulating Nietzsche, designates as “genealogy.” A genealogical critique refuses to search for the origins of gender, the inner truth of female desire, a genuine or authentic sexual identity that repression has kept from view; rater, genealogy investigates the political stakes in designating as an origin and cause those identity categories that are in fact the effects of institution, practices, discourses with multiple and diffuse point of origin. That task of this inquiry is to center on-and decenter-such defining institutions: phallogocentrism and compulsory heterosexuality”.

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Colette, A., Marjolaine, C. Perception by French students of the gendered nature of material artifacts studied in technology education. Int J Technol Des Educ 27, 1–18 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-015-9329-9

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