Desegregation — How to Climb Invisible Walls

Abstract

These are extracts from the Nordic BRYT-project and both tell about change. The physics teacher has become more sensitive to recognising gender difference in textbooks and the teacher-pupil interaction and he has started to behave in a more gender inclusive way. The girls who study physics have also changed. They have started to answer physics questions in the school-leaving exams. They have more confidence and their performance has gone beyond their expectations. The aim of the project was to give the girls experience of succeeding in learning new skills and, as a result, to enable them to adopt a positive attitude towards their abilities to learn about technology. Since the 1970s Nordic equality policies have included breaking up occupational segregation and hierarchies. In order to strengthen this objective the Nordic Council of Minister’s Commission for Equality founded the BRYT-project (1985–89). The task of the project was to develop and test methods for breaking up gender divisions in the labour markets. Experiments were launched in one locality in each Nordic country. The aim was to improve and expand women’s access to education and guarantee women’s employment by influencing both the education system and working life.

Had you paid any attention before the Project to the fact that some subjects favour one sex rather than the other?

Very little. I have noticed in my work that the textbooks on physics are written on men’s terms entirely. The exercises and examples are taken from men’s lives. There is room for improvement in the books. In lessons one can also easily offend the girls with unintended comments. Now I constantly think that the girls are present so that I would not put them down or mock them. […] An interesting fact became apparent in the final exams; girls used to leave the physics questions unanswered, but now, after this experiment, they solved a lot of physics problems.

(A 50-year-old male physics teacher)

Tuesday: We studied the basics of electricity and there was a lot of familiar stuff too but more things that were unfamiliar. Recognising different components was quite easy. But then we started working on blinking lights. Almost all thought that it was not going to work, but in the end it did, it worked real fine for everybody.

(Tanja, 9th grade comprehensive school, 16 years old)