Kasvatus & Aika 8 (1) 2014, 127–129
ABSTRACTS
Women Troubadours – Educated Women in the Middle Ages?
Susanna Niiranen
Education plays an essential role when depicting an ideal man or woman in Medieval literature. Education was also often associated with Occitan women troubadours, the trobairitz,
active from around 1170 to approximately 1260. The word ensenhamen, in its general
meaning, means instruction given or received, but it becomes one of the specialized terms
in the troubadours’ and trobairitz’ vocabulary, representing new values of courtly society as
well as its social and cultural rearrangement. This article does not deal with institutions of
Medieval learning and schooling, but rather with concepts and attitudes towards women’s
learning and education among various Occitan writers including the women troubadours
themselves. What made ‘education’ so appreciated in the troubadour culture? Why was it
so crucial for a (noble) woman to be not only beautiful and well-born, but also cultivated?
Appearance and Construction of Gender in the Education of EighteenthCentury English Aristocratic Girls
Henna Karppinen-Kummunmäki
Gender is a performance. We create our gender through gestures, acts and appearance.
Gender is also a historical matter. Every period and every society has had its own conceptions of how it was like to be a woman or man. This article is about eighteenth-century aristocratic girls, their education, and the importance of appearance in their education. Through
the correspondence of the Lennox family and the didactical literature published in England
during the eighteenth century, this article examines the concepts of ideal womanhood of the
period, how these concepts were visible in the education of girls and, moreover, what part
appearance played in all this. This article will show that aristocratic girls and women had to
carefully balance between the eighteenth-century ideals of modest womanhood and the
expectations of their own social position. The themes of this article are part of the author’s
on-going PhD thesis research.
Chronometer and Steam Engine: Health Guidebooks Raising Gender
Anna-Maija Mäki-Kuutti & Sinikka Torkkola
There is little research on gender in health communication in Finland. Our approach to
health and gender is as a cultural and social practice where citizens are positioned in rela127
Abstracts
tion to a society, each other and themselves. The article analyses how self-help guidebooks
published in different decades participate in the construction of the gender order and the
negotiation of the gender contract. We analysed the prefaces and tables of the content of 22
popular self-help books on health aimed at men and women in 1893–1981. The majority of
the books are aimed at women because health is regarded as one of their ‘natural’ respons ibilities. In the books, the gendering of health and illness concerns all aspects of health:
women and men are ill and look after their health differently. This is manifest in the health
information the guidebooks contain, the ways the books address male and female readers
and in the tips the audience is given on the proper use of the body. The self-help books on
health call women and men to the health discipline and position them in their rightful
places in the cultural and social order. The order of the genders persists but it is reproduced
in different ways at different times.
School Handicraft as a Tool for Women’s Education
Päivi Marjanen
Before comprehensive school handicraft was taught separately for girls and boys in the
Finnish school system. It is known that school handicraft is under pressure for change in
the future. This is partly due to the fact that the subject is still very gendered. The aim of
this article is to explain what kind of womanhood has been constructed through school handicraft during the years 1866–2003. According to my research results school handicraft has
been used to answer to the changing ideas of womanhood (Marjanen 2012). As women's
sphere expanded in society, a woman’s role changed from that of a home-focused caretaker
to an active member of civil society and furthermore towards global citizenship. At the
same time when a woman’s role was remodeled, the need for women's handicraft skills
changed from home textile products expertise to economic consumerism, textile and
information technology. The main sources used in the article are committee reports and
school books.
Secondary Workforce, First Rate Educator. Education, Paid Work and
Gender in Women's Magazines in 1966–1972
Anne Koskela
This article focuses on the time period (1966–1972) during which women’s entrance to the
labor market resulted in a societal structural change in Finland. During this time, the gender
contract in Finland was renegotiated. This article analyses the multidimensional societal
debate which took place widely for example in media and the Parliament. The paper ana lyses how this process was visible in two women’s magazines, Kotiliesi and Me naiset.
Both these magazines represent a forum in which demands regarding women’s employment were made to society, state and to women themselves. Participation of women in the
labor force was not a straightforward transition, but required changes in the public discourse. The analysis shows that much of the discussion revolved around children’s daycare
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Kasvatus & Aika 8 (1) 2014, 127–129
which was the key element of the debate, while women’s education had a minor role. Both
women’s magazines took part in the process of restructuring the social relationship between
men and women.
Gender and Journalism Education in Finland from the 1960s to the 1980s
Heidi Kurvinen
The number of university students increased rapidly in Finland during the 1960s. The
development took place also among journalism students among which the majority of stu dents were female. At the same time, self-made journalists still entered the profession. The
question whether journalists should have a higher education was discussed among the pro fession from the late 1960s onwards. In this article, the writer analyzes the discussion from
the perspective of gender. She argues that the ideal of a self-made journalist was masculine.
Because of that the profession was sustained as a free profession although more and more
journalists were acquiring a degree in journalism. The source material for the article consists of media texts and committee reports.
Moving Boys – Lifestyle and Physical Activity of Young Men and Boys in
Four Generations
Mikko Salasuo & Anni Ojajärvi
This article tracks down changes and the place of physical activity (PA) in childhood and
youth for four generations (from the 1920s to this day). The article is based on the data of
20 families and four generations of men (N=43). Modernization caused breaks to the legacy of PA. The model of strength, stamina and psychical activity of everyday life did not
get passed to the next generation as it used to in agrarian society. Younger generations gave
new meanings to PA that were not connected to coercion in everyday life or continuity of a
family’s way of life. There was a paradigmatic change in thinking especially with men born
in the 1960s and 1970s. The attitudes towards exercise and PA were connected to leisure
time and got an overall playful tone. The youngest generation of the data is moving more
towards an attitude where PA is just one choice among many others. At the same time PA
and exercise are getting more experimental characteristics.
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