The long mission towards gender equality in teacher education : Reflections from a national project in Finland

Abstract

Gender equality has since the 1970s been an aim in international educational politics and policies. Also Finland has evidenced a history of hundreds of projects and reports that have repeated the same aims, ideas and practical innovations for promoting equality, many of them with teacher education as one of the foci. However, the actual pace of change has been very slow. In this paper we focus in the impact of a national project on gender awareness in teacher education (2008-2011). We analyze changes in cultures and curricula in relation to gender awareness in teacher education. The data includes documents of the project, curricula of teacher education, answers of the former activists of the project and interviews with teachers in one teacher education unit. We also use auto-ethnographic methodology. We suggest that conceptual problems in issues around gender and involvement in personal lives makes addressing gender difficult in teacher education. We also suggest that the mission of gender awareness is difficult, but not a mission impossible.