Browsing by Author "Hannula, Kirsi"

The purpose of this study was to examine the ways genders are represented in Tekstiiliopettaja- and Tekninen Opettaja magazines. Gender in relation to handicrafts has been studied especially in the context of craft education in schools, and the influence of teacher’s values and attitudes on how they perceive their students has also been studied in various subjects, but there’s few studies focusing specifically on craft teachers. Teachers play a significant role on students’ life, and as a subject with a very gendered past craft can play an important part in either changing or strengthening traditional gender roles. This makes the association member magazines of craft and technology teachers an interesting subject for this study, as they can offer a glimpse into the teachers’ views. The questions this study focuses on are 1.) What kind of gender-related discourses can be found in the texts of the association member magazines? 2.) How different genders are represented in the images of the magazines? The study has a qualitative approach on the subject and the data used consist of the entire 2019 volumes of the Tekstiiliopettaja and Tekninen Opettaja magazines. Both magazines publish four issues in a year, so the entire data consisted of the written texts and images of 8 issues. The representations of gender were analyzed using the methods of discourse analysis and image analysis. The 2019 volumes were chosen for this study because it was the latest fully published volume available at the time this study was made and using the most re-cent data was the most relevant choice considering the matter of the study. The study showed that the texts in the magazines are generally quite gender neutral, but when gender does come up in them, the discourses usually follow fairly traditional views. In the images the old divide into manly technology and womanly textile work is still clearly visible. The sparsity of gendered expressions in the texts shows clear intention towards better gender sensitivity, but the representations seen in the images overshadow the neutral tone of the text and even change the overall impression of the contents from non-gendered to gendered. The results are partly due to the gendered history of crafts, but they also show that changing into gender-neutral language alone isn’t enough to change the prevailing gender norms, but requires also critical discussions and reflecting on the matter.