Hajnalka Fényes • fenyesh@gmail

Hajnalka Fényes • [email protected]

Dept. of Sociology and Social PolicyUniversity of Debrecen

Gyöngyi Bujdosó • [email protected]

Dept. of Comp. Sci. and Library and Information ScienceFact. Of Computer ScienceUniversity of Debrecen

http://www.inf.unideb.hu/~bujdoso

8th European Feminist Research ConferenceMay 17–20,

2012 • Budapest

Disadvantages of Women in Education –

Analysis of the Education of Librarians in the 21st Century

The women are in majority in higher education (HE) in developed countries and in Hungary as well, and women are in majority even in high prestige university majors (law, economics, medicine)

Advantages of women in education

Bae et al. 2000; Freeman 2004, Buchmann et al. 2008, Róbert 2000; Székelyi et al. 1998, Fényes 2010

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• But there is

– horizontal and

– vertical segregation

in higher education by gender (glass wall and glass ceiling effect, pink collar jobs)

• Women and men study in distinct education areas and the presence of women at the highest levels of education is lower

(in elite institutions, in PhD training, and among university staff members and researchers) (Jacobs 1999, Charles, Bradley 2002, Fényes 2010)

Disadvantages of women in education

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The segregation affects the getting on in life for women in a negative way:

1. women study at departments of lower prestige,

2. they will be employed in professions that are less recognized, and

3. they will get lower salaries

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Horizontal segregation in education – International trends

1960s – women’s rate higher than 70% in the fields of education, fine arts, nursing, history and housekeeping

1990s, USA – the type of the higher education of males and females differed in approximately 30%

1990s – women’s rate higher than 50% even in science (in e.g. chemistry and biology – but not in physics)Their rate was only 14% in engineer training, (Jacobs 1996)

The choice for traditionally feminine careers is present at a higher rate at girls even in the countries (Scandinavian countries, Holland) where the “gender-neutral” education modernizing efforts are predominant (Koncz 1996)

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Horizontal segregation – in Hungary2004 – more than 70% of students were women in

– Secondary school teacher, – primary school teacher and – kindergarten teacher training

and only 23% in engineer training (Palasik 2006)

But Hrubos (2001) showed:

In the 1990’s – segregation decreased to a slight degree the rate of women

– increased in engineer training, and – slightly decreased in teacher training

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Librarian ProfessionLibrarian Profession

• At the middle of the 20th century mostly males were in this profession • After the 2nd World War the librarian profession was feminized• In the 21th century it is becoming again masculine • Due to feminization it has low prestige and low salaries (glass wall effect)• But females are in management positions, future males? (glass ceiling effect)

• Role conflict for women: – The profession needs high level algorithmical and ICT knowledge, – Librarian females have to be good in typical masculine fields as well, – Some women cannot fulfill the requirements of the training• Role conflict for males: – This is a non-traditional occupation by gender

Librarian Profession

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• Focus group interviews (5)• Males females, BA, MA• Library and Information Sciences major, two specializations:

– Web programmer – that needs high quality ICT skills– Librarians closer to the traditional librarian profession

Empirical study

The study is part of the HERD project: “ Higher Education for Social Cohesion Cooperative Research

and Development in a Cross-border Area ” (HURO/0901/253/2.2.2.) research project and

Supported by the European Union European Regional Development Fund

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• Family effects, and non-traditional occupations in the family• Choice of profession, professional plans• Description of the profession, prestige• Learning methods, competencies, difficulties• Gender differences in the profession• Gender role attitudes, role conflicts

Dimensions of the Interviews

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Hyphoteses are based on the literature of non-traditional occupation by gender e.g. Evans 1997, Carmichael 1992, Cross, Bagilhole 2002, Simpson 2005, Evans, Frank 2003, and Lemkau 1984

• Concerning librarian males we suppose that: – they will experience upward mobility due to the low prestige of the

profession, – nontraditional occupations by gender in the family– they identify themselves with modern gender roles (compared to

the average male student)– due to the non-traditional occupation by gender – they will

perceive negative value judgment from the external world• Concerning librarian females

– more traditional gender roles (compared to the average females student, especially in the traditional librarian branch)

– but they have to be good in masculine fields as well (role conflict)• The students expect better employment possibilities and future

management positions for males• There will be gender differences in learning methods

Hypotheses

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Generation Y (born between cc. 1992 and 2000) is already in the higher education

Generation Z (born after 2000) is coming soon (Tari 2010)

Generation Y and Z: Digital Natives

Their learning habits and behavior differ from that of the previous generations

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Differences in• information gathering • information proceeding • social communication and • many other social attitudes (McCrindle 2002)

• The traditional chalk-and-talk teaching is not efficient

• New methods have to be found for the effective communication (McCrindle and Wolfinger 2010)

Gen Y&Z in Learning Process

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Respect other –competencies, –knowledges, – information

Gen Y&Z in Learning Process

In general, that have different relationship to several information (Horváth and Könczöl 2005)

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Gender Differences in Learning Style

MenMen

Gender Differences in Learning Styles

• better in communication• tactical, concentrate on next

task• accommodate themselves to

the existing systems/schemes easily

• read the curricula before filling the self-checking tests

• stand for monotony

• good in orientation• strategists, they are interested

in global interrelation• prefer to create new systems• try to find information just after

filling the self-checking test• Interested in structures and

technical details• do not stand for monotony

WomenWomen

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Interview resultsHypothesis I: Role conflicts• There is no role conflict in choice of major both for females and males• The profession lost its feminine feature

– the males do not feel it feminine both gender are represented• I don’t know, I’ve never got such a thing, that it’s a feminine profession, I do not feel it

feminine, it’s typical unisex profession in my opinion, both gender can keep their feet in it without a hitch.

(Focus 5, male on 2nd year)

– women feel the curricula interesting and easily learnable• I should like to be at computer science, I’m not a communicative librarian …

I’d like to drift to the web site development (Focus 3, female, web programmer on 3rd year, BA)

• For me, the computer science is easier, because if I practice it on the computer it sticks in.

(Focus 3, female, web programmer on 3rd year, BA)

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Interview resultsHypothesis II: Employment possibilities • Neither males nor females do not predict better possibilities for males

in employment and advancement– In high positions on the librarian area I see more women than men

(Focus 4, female traditional librarian on 3rd year, BA)– Women are in the manager positions in most of the libraries

(Focus 1, male, web programmer on 2nd year, MA)

• The employment possibilities are poor in general – Nowadays it’s hard to find a berth in Hungary as a librarian

(Focus 1, male, web programmer on 2nd year, MA)

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Interview resultsHypothesis III: Social mobility• The majority of both gender will be first generation professionals especially in the batchelor training

– My mother works as a maternity nurse, my father is a railman(Focus 3, female, web programmer on 3rd year, BA)

– My father works at milk industry, my mother is a cook (Focus 3, female, web programmer on 3rd year, BA) – My father is a woodworker, my mother is a messenger (Focus 3, female, web programmer on 3rd year, BA)– My parents graduated as secondary school teachers, on biology–geography and biology–chemistry

(Focus 1, male, web programmer on 2rd year, MA)– My parents are primary school teachers, my mother has majors of mathematics and physics, my father has majors of mathematics and

engineering (Focus 1, male, web programmer on 2rd year, MA)

• Most students with worth social background apply to this major due to the low prestige of the librarian profession

– My relatives banter me sometimes with the profession I chose – “the other two object-lessons in the family: one of them is economist, the other is software engineer, but, you, you will be only a librarian” (Focus 5, male, web programmer on 2rd year, BA)

BABA

MAMA

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Interview resultsHypothesis IV: Gender Roles• Both males and females identified themselves with modern gender roles

– The balance is needed very much in household as well, both gender should work, and they have to deal not only with home duties (Focus 3, female, web programmer on 3rd year, BA)

– I would organize it in the weekly schedule that I will make the cleaning on this day, and you will do it on the other day. (Focus 5, female on 2nd year, BA)

– The child, the husband and the household are important, but the job as well(Focus 3, female, web programmer on 3rd year, BA)

– If [my wife] earns more money than me, it needs more effort – than I will care about the children (Focus 1, male, web programmer on 2rd year, MA)

• In some cases the traditional thinking rose up as well– The role of the males is that they should be breadwinners, and women should keep in vivid the relationships

(Focus 1, male, web programmer on 2rd year, MA)

– It is good for man if he earns more because in this case he does not loose his prestige and does not feel himself obscured (Focus 4, female on 2nd year, BA)

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Interview resultsHypothesis V: Learning Methods• The self-directed learning methods were preferred by males

– I would like to learn lot of things on-line, and then we could have a training in the libraries in line with it (Focus 1, male, web programmer on 2rd year, MA)

• But both gender prefer the face-to-face teaching and the tutored course with the active participation of the teacher

– Despite we are in higher education, we are still students and if we want to know something we need to be forced by the teachers (Focus 5, male on 2nd year, BA)

– One can hardly resign oneself to doing self-directed work (Focus 5, female on 2nd year, BA)

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By a qualitative method we can just concretize our hypotheses formulated on the base of the literature

Further quantitative analysis is needed to control them

Future Plans

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Conclusions• The interviewed librarian males and females do not feel any

disadvantage for women in the librarian profession• Although

– The profession is getting more masculine– More and more male get into manager positions

• Males can fulfill better the requirements of the librarian profession in the information society

• Males prefer more self- directed learning methods – this predicts their future success in the labor market

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Papers• Gyöngyi Bujdosó, Ágnes Engler, Hajnalka Fényes, Zsuzsa Tornyi: Gender Differences in Higher

Education in the “Partium” Region, Higher Education for Social Cohesion (HERD) project, Study, 2012, to appear in the special issue of HERJ Journal, http://ebookbrowse.com/herd-b2-1stperiod-bujdoso-engler-fenyes-tornyi-11-09-30-pdf-d241675146.

• Gyöngyi Bujdosó (2011): Analyzing differences in education by gender by using word processing, Proceedings of ICERI2011 Conference, ICERI 2011 (November 14–16,2011, Madrid), ISBN 978-84-615-3324-4, pp. 4042–4049, http://www.iated.org/concrete2/paper_detail.php?paper_id=19641 .

• Hajnalka Fényes (2010): Gender differences in education. Decreasing disadvantages of women. [A nemi sajátosságok különbségének vizsgálata az oktatásban. A nők hátrányainak felszámolódása?] Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó, Debrecen, pp. 228.

• Hajnalka Fényes (2010): Horizontal and Vertical Segregation in Education by Gender in the Hungarian – Romanian–Ukrainian Border Region. Journal of Social Research and Policy Vol.1. Issue:1. 49–68.

• Gyöngyi Bujdosó (2007): New ideas in typographical knowledge management, [Új utak a tipográfiai tudásmenedzsmentben], PhD Thesis, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary, http://www.inf.unideb.hu/~bujdoso/CV/publikaciok_en.php.

Hajnalka Fényes [email protected]öngyi Bujdosó [email protected]

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Thank you for your attention!

Hajnalka Fényes [email protected]

Gyöngyi Bujdosó [email protected]

http://www.inf.unideb.hu/~bujdoso