An Orientation Marked by Gender? The Case of the Valencian Basic Vocational Education and Training

Abstract

In this article we present part of the results in the analysis of the Basic Vocational Education and Training from a gender perspective. A new training cycle included in the compulsory stage of the Spanish educational system in order to avoid early educational abandonment. To this end, adaptation and curricular diversification are combined since the academic curriculum is narrowed in favor of a greater professional content according to the branches offered. Gender clearly emerges as a fundamental variable to understand the small number of women enrolled, as well as their concentration in branches specially connoted in terms of gender. The interviews carried out with the coordination and orientation teams, which are essential for access to a FPB, allow us to verify the persistence of a gender segregation of the different formative itineraries justified on individual preferences. This justification implies taking measures from the centres in only individual terms and always mediated by the scarce available resources (personal and training). But, above all for what is their main priority, that is to avoid the early abandonment of studies. The result is a training cycle in which women are either absent or concentrated in strongly feminized training cycles, reducing thus their training and employment opportunities.