University Of British Columbia
Department of Curriculum Studies
Teacher Education Office
Promoting Gender Equity in the Secondary Technology Teacher Education Program
Marcia Braundy
Graduate Student
Gary Hepburn
Assistant Professor
Stephen Petrina
Assistant Professor
The Promoting Equity in Technology Teacher Education initiative is a joint effort between UBC, BCIT and the BC College of Teachers. During the fall of 1996, a College of Teachers Task Force was formed to advise on potential avenues of recruiting women into technology teacher education. The initial committee was chaired by Anabelle Paxton, Councilor from the College of Teachers and Women in Trades and Technology (WITT) activist. Representatives included Rick Russell, President of the BCTEA, Judy Doll, technology teacher at Moscrop Secondary, and Peter Trant and Dean Trevor Williams of BCIT. The UBC members included Dean of Faculty of Education, Nancy Sheehan, Associate Dean Charles Ungerleider, and Assistant Professors Gary Hepburn and Stephen Petrina. In the fall of 1997, Drs. Hepburn and Petrina were able to get funding from the UBC Equity Enhancement Fund to hire Marcia Braundy, a new graduate student, as our equity coordinator. Marcia is known through her writings and activism for women in technology and the trades over the past 25 years in BC. Her work on our recruitment project has extended from liaison work to organizing information meetings for potential candidates. In 1998, Marcia joined the College of Teachers Task Force. With the Task Force’s guidance and the Equity Fund work of Braundy, Hepburn and Petrina, we are beginning to see some results toward equity in technology teacher education.
An initiative like this is overdue in BC, as women make up less than 1% of the technology teaching force. Continentally, BC is not unique. The International Technology Education Association’s representation is about 97.5% men. In the late 1990s, when the understanding and use of technology is tightly tied to economic success and democratic participation for all, it is vitally important that women be called on as technology teachers and leaders for the next generation of young girls and boys.
The under-representation of young women in the senior technology courses, and of women in teacher education is not so easily addressed. On one hand, industrial education was initiated in an age of separate spheres for women and men. The technologies selected as part of the curriculum were industrial, and represented occupations in which the vast majority were males. There were laws and rules proscribing women’s participation, often justified as natural law. As well, the culture of industrial education defined what it meant to be a technology teacher. Women entering the technology teaching force, today, face additional barriers to be accepted within the structure of a predominantly male profession.
Currently however, the curriculum change from an industrial focus to open-ended design, integration with academics, and social constraints opens up possibilities for drawing from a different expertise and background. The climate for equity is particularly timely, with intervention strategies and proactive recruitment becoming more commonplace. UBC Technology Studies currently has four women student teachers, and BCIT has nine in their technology teacher education program.
Summary of Activities Supported by the Equity Enhancement Fund to date:
(by Marcia Braundy)
General Information Meetings
(January 1998- January 1999)
After a couple of informal department level meetings, the project got off the ground with 2 meetings (5 February & 22 April) of the original College of Teachers Task Force committee which included Dean Nancy Sheehan, TEO Director Charles Ungerleider, TSED Coordinator Stephen Petrina, MST Coordinator Gary Hepburn; College of Teacher’s Rep, Anabelle Paxton; BCIT TTED Coordinator, Peter Trant; UBC Graduate Student, Marcia Braundy. These meetings set the direction for the work:
• Active recruitment meetings targeting WITT, BCASETT, DAWEG, SCWIST, and NAWIC
• Materials development, i.e. brochure, video, articles for BCTF
• Scholarship development
(A clear action plan with responsibilities and time frames would have been helpful here)
Throughout 1998, there have been ongoing ad hoc meetings of the UBC project team to reflect on the work, and change directions as needed (13 and 21 Jan; 10 Feb)
In the fall, the UBC team decided to focus our greater attention towards creating targeted marketing materials for the Technology Education teacher education program which can be adapted to reach a wider audience when necessary, and met with a working group of BCIT senior Directors and marketing staff. As well, there was a decision to focus our recruitment efforts on the technology and engineering areas.
Recruitment Development Meetings:
(Feb/March 1998) M. Braundy:
• Developed mailing list for Lower Mainland WITT members.
• Developed ‘poster’ and letter mailed to 58 members of Lower Mainland WITT (women in trades and technology) highlighting technology teaching as a profession and setting local meeting time with UBC faculty members and graduate student.
• Met with the Women’s Employment and Training Coalition (WETC) to promote project and examine possibilities of working with immigrant women with foreign credentials
• Discussed promotion of initiative with Shirley Holloway, Dean of Trades and Technology at Camosun College in Victoria. Provided her with posters.
• Met with Women’s Employment Advisory Committee to HRDC to inform them of the initiative and develop links
• Developed mailing lists for Kootenay WITT, and South Island WITT.
(23 Feb 1998)
• Dr. Stephen Petrina and M. Braundy met with the Industrial Training and Apprenticeship Commission’s Equity Advisor, Pat Dewhurst, to determine the ways they might support out work. They agreed to mail brochures and announcements to their 4th year apprentices and completers.
(Nov 1998-Jan 1999)
• M. Braundy met with the Society of Canadian Women in Science and Technology (SCWIST) to examine ways we might work together. Dr. Hilda Ching, founder, and Huromi, current President, are most supportive of this initiative and willing to use their resources to get the message out to their members.
• An article was written highlighting the recruitment initiative and sent out on SCWIST’s Internet listservs
• Conversations have been started with the Women In Trades Coordinator at BCIT, Ann St.Eloi. • Resistance has been encountered related to access issues (child care, bursaries and scholarships, and part-time study). There is a perception on her part that UBC is not interested in making changes that might better meet the needs of women, i.e. a full cohort of female Technology Education teachers.
• Initial overview conversations begun with Deanna Rexe, a strong equity advocate who now works on special projects out of the Vice President’s office at BCIT about who might be a useful person at BCIT to represent equity issues from their institutional side on the committee for this project
(1 April 1998)
• Meetings with Shirley Holloway, Dean of Trades and Technology at Camosun, and Minister of Education Paul Ramsey to discuss support for initiatives to increase female participation in technical education.
Recruitment sessions with external groups and individuals:
(23 Feb 1998)
• Braundy, Hepburn and Petrina conducted information session with Lower Mainland WITT members
(9 women).
(1 April 1998)
• Braundy and Petrina conducted information session with South Island WITT (17 women)
Identified the ways in which their backgrounds could contribute to becoming Technology Education teachers, the entry requirements needing to be met, and the ways in which these might be fulfilled.
(March 1998)
• Met with the Women’s Employment and Training Coalition to discuss candidates with significant foreign credentials that might require re-certification. There is an English language issue here, but trainers are briefing their students. A meeting with trainers would be appreciated so that they can inform their clients appropriately.
(Nov. 1998-Jan 1999)
• Began discussions with BC Federation of Labour to get the messages out to women workers with trades and technical qualifications among their membership. Prepared a short piece for their newsletter that will be going out during early February.
(23 May 1998)
• Met with interested women while at Selkirk College for a conference.
Over the year, M. Braundy fielded numerous phone conversations and met with interested women who had heard about the information sessions and wanted to determine what the factors might be for their individual cases. These have been dealt with using Drs. Petrina and Hepburn as resources.
Media development:
(April, May, June 1998)
• M. Braundy & Dr. Petrina went to several local and Vancouver Island Technology Education classes and took slides of teaching and learning activities to be used in promotional materials. Many of these slides are of production quality.
(July, Aug. 1998)
• M. Braundy videotaped at the GETT Camps (Girls Exploring Trades and Technology) taking place at BCIT. Got particularly good footage of Judy Doll, an exemplary Technology Education teacher from Burnaby and chief instructor at the camps. This material can be used in developing promotional materials as well as in teaching classroom techniques for shop oriented activities at UBC.
(July, Aug. 1998)
• Video-interviews were conducted with students and a 17 year old shop assistant at the Camps, who had taken the GETT camp program in its first year, 4 years ago. She is very interested in becoming a Technology Education teacher, and may well enter BCIT in the near future. The footage would be useful in a recruitment video.
(July, Aug. 1998)
• The interview with a GETT camp coordinator, a qualified teacher who has now gone into TTED at BCIT, point to new directions for recruitment of already qualified teachers. This was an excellent interview, which could well be incorporated into a recruitment video. It points to new directions for recruitment efforts to be focused: already qualified teachers.
(17 and 30 Sept, 2 Oct 1998 )
• Group and individual meetings with BCIT and Trevor Williams to work on directions and specifically the brochure to recruit women into the programs. UBC team was told the BCIT marketing department would take our material, write it up and get back to us in two weeks.
(14 Jan 1999)
• Set up another meeting with BCIT to work on the joint brochure for female recruitment. We decided that in future, it could be adapted for a more general audience, but at present we would focus on recruiting women. We also discussed the possibility of putting together a video and/or slide show. BCIT has indicated a willingness to financially support the printing of 5000 4 colour Brochures.
There has been a significant lag in this project at BCIT as Trevor Williams moved into his new position, and responsibility for this project sought a new representative. Paul Morrison has taken on the role and I have had several briefing conversations with him.
At the meeting in mid-January with Paul and individuals from the marketing department, Stephen Petrina and myself, to go over design details, we discovered that little had been done since the initial meeting in October. We identified responsibilities and timelines to get the brochure in our hands by late February. They suggested that we write the copy and run it by them. This was done on 19 January.
The same week we were informed that one female technology teacher in the schools was not willing to give BCIT a testimonial for the brochure because of her difficult experience there.
On 29 January, we received Peter Trant’s edited version of the brochure where most equity recruitment information had been removed.
Reflections and Issues:
Financial Issues:
It is clear from the discussions we have had with interested women that the need for scholarships and bursaries must be met if we are to increase women’s participation. Often, women are in positions of financial responsibility in relation to their families. Women who are working in their technical fields are often not in a financial position to give up their income for 2-3 years and go into large amounts of debt to change careers. While their interest is strong, there must be some incentive to encourage them to do so.
In fall 1997, a proposal was submitted to Leslie Fields, Faculty of Education Development Officer, to work towards attaining a scholarship fund for women in technology education. There has been no progress on this proposal.
Update: April 2004: $12,447 has been raised so far for this project which will hopefully become a Prize to be given out yearly to female Tech Ed pre-service teachers starting in May 2005. Constructing it as a Prize rather than a Scholarship allows for a wider range of criteria to be applied, other than just academic standings.
Follow-up:
During the early summer, M. Braundy conducted follow up phone interviews with those who attended information sessions. Approximately 60% were actively preparing themselves to enter the BCIT program, and were registered at community colleges or OLA for English, Math and other liberal arts credits.
• Progress has been slow last fall due to my course load, and the lack of a clearly identified advocate for the project at BCIT.
• Regularly scheduled meetings at UBC would help to identify problems and move things forward more steadily.
• There seems to be a tension between the two institutions, based on lack of understanding of roles and responsibilities.
• The fact that BCIT has changed the program requirements such that the Accelerated Program is now subsumed under a prior learning assessment recognition which is not clear, straightforward, obvious, or written down anywhere, is making it more difficult for women in the field to consider going back to school for an unknowable length of time.
• Targeting BCTF teachers and those on sub-lists around the province may be a good idea. Targeting theatre craft students at UBC is also, along with engineering students, the Technicians and Technologists Assoc. of BC etc.
• More clarity is needed related to requirements for architects, Emily Carr graduates, graduates from stagecraft and animation programs and related others.
• More clarity is needed related to what kind of media development and dissemination we are considering, and where the funds will come from for that.
Suggested directions:
• Focus on materials development, including brochure, newsletter article, slide/video show.
• Submit funding proposal to Faculty of Education for slide/video recruitment media.
• Occasional recruitment meetings and information sessions, targeting counselors.
• Submit Funding proposal to Ministry of Education and/or the Vancouver Foundation and/or the Centre for Curriculum Training and Technology to continue the recruitment initiative.
• Participate in a review of UBC and BCIT programs from female participants’ perspective to consider possible modifications.