Decreasing attractiveness of the BCP in relation to place, class and gender 

This article explores how perceptions of the building and construction program (BCP) are intertwined with social categories such as place, class and gender influencing its attractiveness. The study was conducted with a mixed methods approach which combined register data, interviews and observations in BCPs in Swedish municipalities.

In Sweden, around 4% of students choose the BCP. There are significant local variations, however, which implies that place matters. Gender also seems to matter, as very few female students enter the program, and only 1% of all carpenters are women. In addition, class is often part of discussions about the BCP, typically perceived as attracting students from the working class. The BCP is suffering from a declining attractiveness, which threatens a vital societal function and deprives young people of a potentially rewarding career.

In Sweden, there is generally low interest in vocational education and training (VET), with an ongoing decline in applicants since the 1980s. Today, the share of VET students is around 30%, the lowest in the European Union (CEDEFOP, 2022). In addition, Sweden stands out insofar in being the member state where most people consider university preparatory programs more attractive than VET (CEDEFOP, 2017). The decrease is particularly significant in male-dominated programs such as the BCP, which is institutionalised as a second choice (Johansson & Petersson, forthcoming). In Sweden, the BCP is part of upper secondary school and is mostly school-based with a minimum of 15 weeks of work-based learning.

The aim of this study was to describe and explain how and why perceptions of VET, place, class and gender intersect with the attractiveness of the BCP.

How do place and class influence the attractiveness of BCP?

In what ways are gender, place and perceptions of VET intertwined, and what does this mean for the attractiveness of the program?

Previous research shows that the attractiveness of VET can be affected by its regulation and by relations between school and a trade. In policy rhetoric, university preparatory programs are often valued at the expense of VET programs. Another reason for the low attractiveness of VET might be epistemological misunderstandings and vocational expertise construed as simple and VET as suitable only for those with school failures (Johansson, 2019; Johansson and Petersson, forthcoming). Other researchers have concluded that vocational students are offered restricted curricula and are trained for a subordinate position in society (Nylund & Rosvall, 2016). Furthermore, it is well acknowledged that attendance in VET is highly dependent on social class (see e.g. Broady & Börjesson, 2008;Hegna & Smette, 2017). Moreover, VET programs are the most gender-segregated programs in upper secondary school (Imdorf et al., 2015). Education, as a foregrounded marker of class, is often connected to what Bourdieu (1984) labelled cultural capital, which is connected to certain tastes and behaviour. In the BCP, girls are a clear minority, and across the world, various measures are taken to encourage cross-gender education and career choices (Amble et al., 2022; Carnemolla & Galea, 2021; Obiol-Francés et al., 2024). Initiatives to counteract gender-segregated educational choices have often failed because norms within the trades themselves remain unchanged (Hedlin & Åberg, 2013). Johansson and Petersson (forthcoming) also found the BCP be clearly dependent on place, as it is more attractive in rural areas. However, girls leave rural areas to a larger extent than boys (Ennerberg et al., 2022).

As analytical lens, a neo-institutional perspective was taken (see e.g. Scott, 2014). With this perspective, it is possible to account for the regulations of the program, the norms and values which surround it and local variations. The institution at stake is the BCP as a part of VET, and its institutionalisation refers to the habitual ways of perceiving and making sense of it. As Acker (1990) noted, institutional and organisational theories are often gender-blind and obscure power relations. Furthermore, Acker (2006) suggested that place should be part of the analysis. Place can be interpreted as a socio-material phenomenon including social, historical, cultural and physical aspects (Massey, 1994). In this article, place is methodologically operationalised as municipalities with their quantitative (geographical and educational) and qualitative aspects (e.g. culture and stakeholder perceptions of the BCP and its attractiveness). The conceptual meaning of attractiveness is ambiguous. It can refer to quantitative measures such as the number of applicants, applicants whose first choice is the program, grades and admission scores. Attractiveness also has qualitative dimensions related to values and norms. Class can also be interpreted in quantitative terms referring for example to duration of education and the like. However, class is often attributed qualitative dimensions, namely norms, taste and behaviour or so-called cultural capital (Bourdieu 2016), for example. In VET, class often intersect with gender, as it is clearly gender segregated. The stance taken here is that gender is performative and that there are a variety of ways to do gender (Butler, 1988). However, a dual gender model is often employed. The notions of men and women are used in this article, as the informants in the study identified themselves as women or men, which does not exclude gender positions beyond this duality. The study was conducted with mixed methods taking inspiration from Spillman (2011). Quantitative data provided background descriptions and qualitive supporting explanations. The empirical material consisted of register data from Sweden Statistics for the quantitative part. For the qualitative part, qualitative interviews were conducted in four Swedish municipalities. In each municipality, construction contractors (n=4), BCP principals (n=4), BCP teachers (n=8), study counsellors (n=3), male students (n=12) and female students (n=13) were recruited. In the analysis, explanations were sought for why the attractiveness of the program varied based on place, class and gender. The project followed the Swedish Research Council’s ethical guidelines on data use, confidentiality and consent in all phases.

In the accounts of the informants, the BCP was perceived as a second choice. There were also fewer applicants than available education places. Taken together, this implies that the BCP is institutionalised as a second choice. The results also show that the BCP is more attractive in rural areas where pride in working with one’s hands and interest in vocational knowledge are more obvious. In terms of class, there several issues requiring a proper investigation. One is the differing perceptions of class in larger towns compared to rural areas where more people own their homes and family relations are important in recruiting. Another issue is that for statistical purposes, class is often measured by parental length of education. Notably, in Sweden it takes six years to become a carpenter. However, the last three years of workplace training after completion of upper secondary school are not accounted for. Both boys and girls in the study explained their choice by citing inspiration from a male relative and wanting to work with their hands and make money. They also opposed university preparatory programs, which they considered snobbish. However, the BCP offered a potentially rewarding career in terms of earning a good living. In terms of gender, the girls in the study expressed a sense of being ignored or rendered invisible in the BCP and changed their minds after a few years in the program, aiming for higher education. Girls are also invisible in statistics since they are too few, and for anonymity reasons, they cannot always be reported by Sweden statistics. Girls also leave the rural areas where the program is attractive. Thus, there seems to be an intricate relationship between place, gender and class in relation to the attractiveness of the BCP, which needs to be further investigated.

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