The presentation is based on our research about transformation of equality policies in vocational and higher education, their implementation and relevance from actor perspective. Previously we have analyzed the match between gender mainstreaming rhetoric and lived experiences in contexts of forestry engineering education, primary schools, department of education and academic equality agency.  (Heikkinen et al 2011.) Based on our findings we argued, that the trans-nationalizing gender mainstreaming policies focus on formal equality between abstract (politically constructed) individuals, ignore the reproductive aspect of intergenerational sex-relations (the “absent family”), assume a universal (anglophonic) definition of “gender” (equality between social constructions), and ignore gender as a relational category (both between men and women and within men and women).

Since then, we have continued concretization and contextualization of arguments, by analyzing the cultural embedding of  sex-distinctions in vocational and higher education (Lietzén et al 2013) and exploring cultural myths on sex equality in Finland (Lietzén et al 2013). In this presentation, we examine our argument in relation to changes in the official agendas of equality in the context of educational reforms in Finland during 1970s to 21^st century.  Reforms of secondary and higher education are located in the economical and political changes in the nation state from the industrial welfare state into the 2000s individualized and globalized information society. We aim to specify our earlier findings from the empirical analysis of experimental data related to assumptions of gender mainstreaming politics. These findings and questions concerned the abstraction, formality and instrumentality of the gender mainstreaming, its ignorance of reproductive aspects and private life and the universal definition of gender.

The reference point for our analysis is the post-World War II Finland, the period of reconstruction and building up of national economies and societies. From the perspective of gender equality policy, the previous projects of securing national and economic independence continued in ideals of engineering and health care vocational education. More widely, sex-differences in work and education raised minor political interest, while the traditional view on compensatory functions of feminine and masculine work was prevailing. Despite the diversities and struggles inside vocational and higher education, we characterize this period as dominated by the ideals of masters - engineers - and mistresses - nurses - of the nation. (Heikkinen 2002.)

In this presentation, we analyze the transformation of Finnish equality policies and their practical consequences since the 1970s until  the contemporary days in fields of vocational and higher education. They are contextualized in transformation of trans-national equality policies, which increasingly challenge the culturally embedded notions and solutions in relation sex-based equality in education and work.

Heikkinen, A. 2002. Masters and mistresses of the nation. Gonon, P. , Heikkinen, A. (eds.). Gender perspectives to vocational and continuing education. Bern etc.: Peter Lang. Heikkinen, A., Lammela, J., Lietzen, L., Lätti, J., Karhunen, E. 2011. Gender mainstreaming: inclusion or exclusion. Stolz, S., Gonon, P. (eds.) Challenges of Inclusion and Exclusion in Vocational Education. Bern etc.: Peter Lang. Lietzén, L.,Heikkinen, A. & Lätti, J. 2014 (upcoming). Cultural embedding of sex-distinctions in vocational education. Lietzén, L., Heikkinen, A. & Lätti, J. 2014 (upcoming). The Myth of the Finnish Superwoman. In Heikkinen et al. (eds) Myths and Brands in Vocational Education. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.