Despite their growing participation in the world
of labour and the high educational levels they have reached, women
continue to be affected by discrimination and inordinate demands
limiting their access to employment and to personal and vocational
development. This reality cannot be explained without reference
to a complex process of differential social roles and hierarchical
spaces and values based on sex. This gender differentiation conditions
choices and places "reserved" for men and women in the
personal, labour and professional fields, and establishes a sexual
division of labour and occupational segmentation. Consequently,
adopting a gender perspective and incorporating it into the analysis
and design of employment and training policies is an essential
requirement and a precondition for effectively ensuring equal
opportunities for men ad women, and combating poverty. If training
policies do not take an overall and organised attitude to question
and deflate such social practices, they inevitably replicate and
reinforce them. In support of this attitude, the FORMUJER
Regional Programme intends to develop a "resource kit"
comprised of methodologies, strategies and teaching tools. The
materials in this volume are along those lines. They have been
devised for gender educational inputs for the training of teaching
and technical staff at VTIs. They are aimed at developing basic
knowledge and a common denominator for detecting and modifying
gender signs in training policies and practices.
These "Modules" are part of a series of methodological
materials that the FORMUJER Programme is developing to upgrade
the quality and relevance of technical-vocational training in
the region, and to include and/or strengthen gender equity so
as to favour womens participation. They incorporate an active
methodology based on participation and dialogue, allowing for
feedback and suggestions to enhance teaching materials. The authors
proposal has been validated by regional co-ordinators, by the
technical teams of the executing units in the four countries involved
in the project, by their teaching, technical and managing personnel,
and by the Technical Director of the scheme Women in Development,
of the IDB Department of Social and Sustainable Development Programmes.
Men/women teachers play a crucial role not only in the Modules
implementation process but also in their future development, based
on the experiences gathered in Argentina, Bolivia and Costa Rica,
as well as in other countries of the region wishing to replicate
the trials in their specific contexts. The present edition is
to be considered as reference material to be adapted to the characteristics
of the countries that use it.
The Inter-American Centre for Knowledge Development
in Vocational Training (ILO/Cinterfor)
Avda. Uruguay 1238 - Montevideo - Uruguay - Tel: (5982) 908 6023 - 902 0557
- 908 0545 - Fax: (5982) 902 1305
webmaster@cinterfor.org.uy