Gendered voices from the natural science programme in Swedish upper secondary school: On the
need for a more socially responsible science and technology.

Else-Marie Staberg
Centre for Women«s Studies
Ume‘ university
901 87 Ume‘
Sweden

Abstract
A current interview study with girls and boys suggest some points of interest for questions of quality
and gender-sensitivity of science and technology in the natural science programme in the newly
reformed Swedish upper secondary school (the "gymnasium"). This programme is the most
prestigious and is a base for further studies in science, medicine or technology. The programme has a
compulsory technology course which in practise seems to deal mostly with mechanics in spite of the
curriculum, which allows for discussions of effects and consequences of technologies. Girls reject
technology. The subject technology contributes to the gendering of the programme. Another sign of
this gendering is girls« beliefs that the teaching of technology and also of chemistry and physics is
more directed towards boys . 

Pupils who have chosen the natural science programme construct knowledge in chemistry and
physics as a separate procedural knowledge. It is not common among them to question the traditional
instrumental way of studying science and technology. Discussion and reflection belong to other
subjects like environmental studies or social studies. I argue that if we want to foster a socially
responsible science and technology we must let traditionally masculine values like effectivity and
productivity in science and technology education give way for virtues like care, connection and
concern - traditionally associated with women. Here the compulsory subjects in the natural science
programme are crucial. In the Swedish case the reform of the gymnasium had, or still has,
possibilities.

Keywords: education, gender, science, technology, upper secondary school, values


In poststructural feminist research in education categories like "girls" or "women" are questioned.
The concepts "girl" or "women" obscure other differences, such as social class, race and ethnicity
and the interest now is upon difference.{1} The concept "gender" as opposed to "sex" is also under
debate as the sex/gender dichotomy is questioned.{2} At the same time there are from other parts
renewed attacks in defining girls/women solely from biology, that is from ÒsexÒ, which makes it
important to use both the concepts girl and woman as well as gender opposed to sex. As a researcher
with an interest in GASAT questions you can sometimes feel trapped. 
The philosopher Jane Roland Martin comes to rescue. She warns us of falling into the trap of false
difference. "Just as no two individuals and no two circumstances are alike in every respect, no two are
different in every respect (Martin 1994, 646)." Differences do not exclude similarities and only by
investigations we can find out if there are important similarities between girls or women. We still
ought to look for the similarities between girls or women that are relevant. In many societies in the
area of education in science and technology gender differences exists for example in participation, in
outcomes of schooling and in prestige. Researchers look for explanations for these gender
differences in different ways that can be said to belong to three, overlapping categories. The first, at a
more individual level drawing on psychoanalytic theories, the second at a structural level focusing the
gendered division of labour with science and technology as male domains and the third where the
discourse is analysed and beliefs and so called truths about girls/women and science/technology are
deconstructed. These categories are in accordance with the three interrelated processes in the
construction of gender, formulated by another philosopher Sandra Harding (1986): the individual,
the structural and the symbolic. The structural gender is manifested in the gendered division of
labour and the symbolic gender is at work in language and images.
In spite of the theoretical difficulties I find it fruitful to concentrate on gender as a social construction
and to focus girls when studying interactions in the classroom and talking to girls and boys at school.
I speak from a Swedish perspective but hope my discussion on gender and science education can be
of interest even in other cultures.

Gender in compulsory school science
First I will briefly clarify what I have found on gender, science and technology in the compulsory
school in an earlier study.{3}
The analysis showed that a social construction of chemistry, physics and technology as masculine
domains continues in the classroom mutually with the construction of gender. The mutuality of these
constructions has been pointed out by Cynthia Cockburn (1991) and Alison Kelly (1985). At the
individual level the notions of physics and chemistry vary. Successful girls from families with a
higher education refuse to regard these subjects as structurally masculine. However, the majority of
the girls have, over the years, come to construct femininity - and maturity - as being opposed to
enjoying the experiments, which came to be seen both as boys' play and as part of the masculine
world. Since the content is strongly connected with boys' activities and since boys demonstrate their
power over the content and the apparatus, they also reconstruct the subjects as masculine. This is even
more obvious in technology.

All girls, even the successful ones, tend to question their own understanding. This can be interpreted
as knowledge, conscious or unconscious, of the relation between gender and science at the symbolic
level. Girls are aware of the notions in society of women as illogical, irrational, soft and subjective,
and thus unfit for science. Girls therefore doubt their own competence in science.

The "choices" of study programmes in upper secondary school were strongly gender-bound, but they
were also determined by family background. Girls' choices were more dependent on social
background than boys', while boys' choices were more gendered.  The options that are of interest in
our context here is the natural sciences programme and the theoretical and practical technology
programmes.

Six girls, out of sixteen, chose natural sciences, the most prestigious study programme in upper
secondary school and, according to public opinion, the toughest. The natural science study
programme opens most ways to future studies and careers. Four of the girls who chose this
programme had fathers with a very high education, three of the fathers even in science or
mathematics. The choice of natural sciences, where at the time of the study almost half of the students
are girls, does not violate the female norm. This choice is much a matter of family expectations.
No girls but most boys chose some kind of technology programme. Girls reject technology. Their
reasons are based on bad experiences in school, both in the classroom and in career guidance, and on
the notions of technology as a masculine world. The girls are aware of the propaganda for "more
girls into technology", and they interpret this propaganda as if "they" want them to become car
mechanics. Girls with high ambitions therefore do not regard technology as a means to get status
jobs. They are prejudiced against technology and convinced that the subject does not interest them.
What they do not realize is that ÒtechnologyÒ in compulsory school (in Swedish teknik) is different
from "technology" in upper secondary school (in Swedish teknologi). The former is more practical,
the latter theoretical and leads to work as an engineer, which is a status job in Sweden. But in one
sense the girls tend to judge the subjects more realistically. In both these cases the meaning and
content of technology is intimately tied to the Swedish industry and preparing pupils i.e. boys for
work on different levels in the industry. Technology in both school levels can therefore be an entry
to a masculine world.

In upper secondary school

I am now working on a study where my data are interviews with girls and boys at the natural science
programme in upper secondary school. My subjects are girls and boys who were successful in the
scientific subjects in compulsory school and positive enough to chose further studies of science.
Since I completed my study of the compulsory school and started the one in the upper secondary
school Sweden has reorganized the upper secondary school. The change that is of interest in this
context is that the programme for natural sciences and the theoretical one for technology have
become one programme called the natural science programme. As a consequence, or maybe it was
rather one of the reasons for the change, technology is studied by all pupils in this programme the
first year. The second year the pupils can chose to focus either technology or the natural sciences. In
my study the informants are both from the old natural science programme and from the new. The
girls and the boys I describe in this paper are, however, studying in the new programme.

The pupils come from two schools in the same town in northern Sweden. My study started with a
questionnaire, responded by 81 girls and 130 boys in the first term of year one. This first year I later
talked to 23 girls and 13 boys. Of those were nine girls and six boys interviewed year two. At both
occasions the interviews concentrated on girls« and boys« thoughts about their schooling, especially in
science and technology. I plan to interview these 15 pupils once more in their third and last year of
the programme. The results and the discussion in this paper are preliminary and based on a small, but
important, part of the material.

The girders

When I interviewed girls and boys during their first year the girls were talking more about technology
than about other subjects. They seemed repelled by the technology, and only a couple of the girls I
talked to wanted to continue with subject.

Now, what do my informants say? Many boys think technology is like mathematics or physics and
rather OK, although there are boys who look critically at the subject. Girls, on the other hand, are
very critical. They say things like " there is no meaning in this subject", "they have taken the most
boring from physics and made it worse" or "they think that we are becoming engineers and we are
not". Now girls do not talk about car mechanics as they did in the compulsory school, but of
engineers! The similarity is that what they reject is something they consider masculine and empty of
meaning. And as after compulsory school they avoid further studies of the subject technology. Only
one of my female informants and very few girls in the two schools in question chose to take the
subject year two.{4}

The girls complain over the "girders" and the forces and wonder why nobody told them what kind of
subject technology is before the teacher started with, for them, unfamiliar tools and machines. They
do not consciously ask for another direction of the subject, they rather want more explanations and a
greater understanding for their own inexperience with technical matters. The curriculum says,
however, that the subject technology is to deal with the history of technology and the social
consequences of technology as well as with "girders and forces". I know that this was the intention
with the new curriculum. None of my informants have anything to tell about discussions of social
consequences. The history has briefly been dealt with, obviously in a traditional way, focusing male
technology. Even so some boys felt this was unnecessary.
The social construction of the subject technology continues and changes from intentions to
curriculum to classroom. During these transitions the traditionally male technology becomes more
and more stressed. Would another emphasis be possible when the teachers are the same men who have
been teaching the subject for years in another context? And would boys who are expecting the
traditional content accept a strong emphasis on a discussion of social consequences or sustainable
development? Perhaps even more unthinkable: could it be possible with a discussion of male power
over technology and the imagination of another technology? Maybe also girls would resist such an
emphasis?{5} 

Boys« interests.

In the subject technology the mutual social constructions of gender and technology is manifest. The
gender differentiation becomes obvious. But even in the subjects chemistry and physics girls find that
the teaching and the content is more adjusted to the boys. In the interviews the first year girls point
out that they have to be interested of the things that are of interest for boys. They also say that boys
answer more questions and are more noisy than girls even if they find the boys less loud-voiced and
noisy than in compulsory school. In the second year the girls do not talk about adjusting themselves
but they still talk of boys«superiority in subjects like physics and technology. Maybe they
unconsciously have adjusted themselves? This a question I would like to follow up in the last
interview.
One problem with the girls« notions of the gendering of certain subjects is the risk that girls see
themselves as less clever than boys. They show such tendencies in their answers but there are also
signs of resistance towards this belief. And girls point out the importance of the attitude of the
teacher: "if he doesn't think anything of the pupil, then the pupil is nothing". When the teacher shows
that he or she prefers boys, the girls notice.

Separate procedural knowledge

When asked the first year about the study of mathematics and science girls - and some boys - criticise
the rapidity with which they have to study. ÒI do not have time to understand properlyÒ, one girl
says. ÒYou have barely understood one thing, when they start on the next oneÒ, says another. In year
two one girl says about the pupils on the programme: 

We must be able to absorb easily. Maybe we are not supposed to question why? We are not to wonder
too much. Just to try to take in and accept. Because we move rapidly forward. We have to work very
fast.

Other pupils corroborate this picture, more or less critically. They are also proud of belonging to this
elite of pupils, who also by other pupils in the school are considered smart and hardworking. Using
Mary Field Belenky«s and her coworker«s (1986) now well known categories of ways of knowing I
argue that the girl talks about "received knowledge". On the other hand she wants to move towards
other forms of knowledge. And the overall picture is that these pupils are, as far as I understand the
categories, experts on "procedural knowledge". But it is also obvious that they have no time to arrive
at the "constructed knowledge", that integrates the knowing subject into the knowledge. 

The procedural knowledge can be "separate" and "connected". The sayings of the girls show that
the separate knowledge prevails. "I do not know what happens in the rest of the world. I just sit here
by myself with math problems. I would like more subjects that has something to do with reality,"
says a girl. She obviously does not even think that mathematics could have anything to do with
reality. The same opinions can be heard about physics or chemistry, even if some of the pupils find
more connection to reality in those subjects. It is only the pupils that have opted for environmental
studies in year two that talk about problem discussions, about questioning theories, having an opinion
of their own and not accepting everything that is written in a textbook. But even in this subject many
girls feel the stress and the pressure to superficially cover lots of facts.

Affective factors

One girl has had an interesting, and also self-critical, comment on the pupils, the knowledge and the
studies on the programme:

The science pupils seem to have difficulties in being empathic towards people and...to take a stand in
different problems in society and to debate. I myself do not enjoy that either, but I find it extremely
important. People do not care as they did in compulsory school./.../It seems as if people do not care
anymore. I think we should have something like "problems in society" as a subject. To discuss how to
solve problems and make things better. /../I think it is important because science people have rather
big power in reality, because they...invent everything that is dangerous and unpleasant.

I find that this girl wants the curriculum to include the three Cs: care, connection and concern
formulated by Jane Roland Martin (1985). Jane Martin claims that women«s entry to men«s education,
traditionally aimed at the productive world, must be followed by a change of men«s education, that to
be an educated person also means to be educated for the reproductive world. Her advice is to bring in
more values traditionally attributed to women into all subjects. The way girls talk about the studies
shows the need for these values. How could this be done?.

Maybe one possibility is to focus the affective factors in learning? The girls« opinions especially on
technology also show how important affective and not only cognitive factors are in the learning
situation. Girls very seldom speak with warmth about the subjects, especially not over the technology.
Many boys - but not all - on the other hand show great enthusiasm or express very positive feelings
towards the subjects. The affective factors like notions, attitudes, desire and aims must be in balance
with the cognitive factors in a meaningful learning. The metacognition, the reflection over your own
learning, can only be reached if the affective and the cognitive factors are in balance.{6} 

Bringing these affective factors to the surface in the learning situation could move the emphasis from
the separate allegedly objective knowledge of facts towards a more connected knowledge and thereby
also to a more gender-sensitive teaching. 

Masculine values

I am not saying that it is a female virtue only to reflect over what is learned and what use you or
others can make of what is learnt. But in both studies I refer to it is mostly girls who bring up these
questions. I argue, however, that in the natural science programme the girls meet a world that is
designed by men with mostly male teachers. The science curriculum and the pedagogy in Swedish
schools were constructed by men and at least until this day it has been mostly men teaching
mathematics, physics and technology at the upper secondary school. (Chemistry has been more of a
female subject and also an almost soft subject with less status). The teaching and content traditions are
pervasive and many ideas remain from the boys« schools in the old sex segregated systems. The
notions of natural science studies held by many curriculum writers and teachers belong to the
masculinity. It is believed that natural studies shall be effective, rational and hard. Values and
questions of objectivity are not discussed. It is fairly logical if girls feel that they have to adjust
themselves in order to fit in.

Towards a sustainable development?

The aim of my paper has been to show that the teaching and learning of science and technology must
change direction. The reasons are both to involve more girls and women into these fields and the
need to foster socially responsible scientists and engineers. The Swedish natural science programme
of today encourage pupils who effectively can absorb lots of facts and learn to understand and apply
procedures but who does not question and wonder too much. 

To me it is obvious that in a world aiming for a sustainable development we have to give much more
emphasis on values and to strive for a connected knowledge on all levels of science education. The
role of education in fostering socially responsible and gender-inclusive science and technology is
crucial.

References

Beyer, Karin 1993. Gender, project work and the meta-perspectives of science. In Transforming
Science and Technology: Our future depends on it. Contributions to the Seventh International
Gender and Science and Technology Conference,  883-892.
Braidotti, Rosi et al 1994. Women, the Environment and Sustainable Development. Towards a
Theoretical Synthesis. London: Zed Books Ltd.
Belenky, Mary Field et al 1986. Women«s Ways of Knowing: The development of self, voice and
mind. New York: Basic Books.
Cockburn, Cynthia 1991. Technology and Gender as Social Constructions: Some Implications for
Education and Training. In Inga Elgqvist-Saltzman (red). Education and the Construction of Gender
(Kvinnovetenskapligt forums rapportserie, nr 2). Ume‘: Ume‘ univerisitet, Kvinnovetenskapligt
forum.
Harding, Sandra 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. 
Kelly, Alison 1985. The Construction of Masculine Science. British Journal of Sociology of
Education, 6(2), 133-154.
Kenway, Jane et al 1993. In Lyn Yates (ed). Feminism and Education. Melbourne Studies in
Education 1993. Melbourne: La Trobe University Press.
Martin, Jane Roland 1994. Methodological Essentialism, False Difference, and Other Dangerous
Traps. Signs, 19, 31, 630-657.
Martin, Jane Roland 1985. Reclaiming a Conversation: The Ideal of the Educated Woman. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Staberg, Else-Marie 1993. Gender and Science in the Swedish Compulsory School. Gender and
Education, 6(1), 630-657.
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La Trobe University Press.



FOOTNOTES********************************

{1} 	Rosi Braidotti et al (1994, 29-58) has a relevant discussion of feminist critiques of science. See Lyn
Yates (1994) for thorough discussions around education and ÒgirlsÒ.

{2} 	Ruth Hubbard (1990, 136-138) points to the dynamic interaction between "sex" and "gender".

{3} 	I have reported this study the GASAT conferences 1987 and 1991. See also Staberg (1993).

{4} 	Although the teaching and the success of the technology course in year one varies in Swedish schools
it looks as if this new program construction resulted in a diminished interest for technology. But there
has been other changes in the programs that can have contributed to the same effect.

{5}	 For an interesting discussion of responses from girls to feminist interventions in school, see Jane
Kenway et al (1993).

{6} 	The need for metacognition and its importance for girls learning and participation in science have been
discussed in GASAT conferences by Karin Beyer. See e.g. Beyer (1993).