In this article, we discuss teachers' reflections on the relation between teaching and care in the two most gender-segregated sectors of vocational upper secondary education in Finland, namely Health and Social services and Transport and Technology. We first discuss the concepts around education, teaching, taking care for and caring about…

In this article our focus is on the persistent gendered divisions in educational routes of young people who choose a vocational path after compulsory education in Finland. We analyse how gendered subjectivities are constructed within the practices of educational and vocational guidance and within student cultures in the comprehensive school, as…

In this article the life history of a young Finnish woman, Salla, is explored along with reflections of her best friend and other peers. The analysis is conducted from the perspective of Finland as a country of "genderless gender", where mute or hidden gendering and sexualisation converge with the gender-neutral rhetoric about the individual self.…

In Finnish secondary schools, girls and boys are taught physical education (PE) in separate groups. A male teacher normally teaches the boys and a female teacher teaches the girls. Focusing on PE teachers' comments in two different ethnographic studies of seventh graders (13-14-year-olds), we examine the processes that reproduce or challenge the…

In Finland more than 80% of the male population participates in military service. Going to the army is an important step in the transition to male adulthood and a period for further education. This paper explores reflections on the army of 20-year-old men, some of whom have it already behind them and some others with their military service…

Examined relationships and conflicts between secondary school boys and girls, noting the fine line between playing "just for fun" and harassment. Data from classroom observations, interviews with younger adolescents, and reminiscences of the same adolescents a few years later revealed diverse interpretations of gendered interactions. Incidents…

The significance of a school's physical environment is explored through a discussion of a metaphor used by some students in a study in Finland and England in which students characterized their schools. The "ant's nest" metaphor communicates the lack of spatial and embodied autonomy that students experience in school. (SLD)