“Men where are you?”
– the problem of feminization in the pedagogy profession.
Jasna Krstović
Ph.D. Jasna Krstović, a retired teacher at the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Rijeka.
The most turbulent area of inequality between women and men in Croatia is the labor market, which very clearly reflects the gender image of society. The influence of the patriarchal cultural heritage in many areas continues to create visible gender asymmetry and gender inequality through the existence of clearly defined “male” and “female” fields of work. One of the better examples is the education system which has a growing tendency toward feminization! The more we “descend” in the levels, the dominance turns into exclusivity, so early and preschool education is still an exclusively female field of work today.
The feminization of the educational function in general, with an emphasis on the kindergarten teaching profession, is not only a serious social problem and goes beyond the issue of gender. It becomes profoundly humane at the moment when we seek answers to the questions: is raising children still an immanent female issue? Has it come time to seriously act on stereotypically defined gender roles and enable the child to have the opportunity to live in a gender-balanced environment in the family and especially in his first institutional experience – in kindergarten, which as such represents an excellent opportunity to build his own attitudes towards i/o gender roles in the society in which they will live.
UNIRI The Moise Palace: Cres Island
An education center of the University of Rijeka. A five-hundred-year-old patrician townhouse and the largest Renaissance palace on the Croatian islands. A venue and forum for various scientific and research activities, it welcomes visiting academics, students and scholars.
