The male-dominated interpretation of work, occupations and vocational education seem astonishingly persistent in the mainstream research, practice and policy discourses on vocational education. Yet, this may be one of the obstacles underlying the difficulties to tackle the current environmental, political and economic crisis in vocational education. Whether in historical or vocational education studies, male-dominance is typically challenged only by female researchers, attempting to make visible struggles on recognition of women’s work, occupations and education, and their institutionalised solutions. In those contexts, womanliness is commonly attributed to home and family, conceived from a rather middle or upper-class and contemporary perspective, with nationalist/nation-statist methodologies. (e.g. Heikkinen & Henriksson, 2001, 2002).

We understand womanliness, work and education as relational and controversial concepts, shaped at the intersection of individual and collective, local and planetary intentions and activities. Instead of analysing the history of “women’s vocational education” as such, we find it more fruitful to reflect on how women were embedded in the history of education, in relation to the organisation of the totality of human and nonhuman work across local and national contexts. This requires focusing on vertical and horizontal division of work and education, which is considered necessary for social production of livelihoods and certain ways of life.

Instead of gender, we speak about women and men in work and education. While this leaves aside the complexity of sexual orientations that would be important to analyse, this allows making visible the relational and controversial nature of women’s work and education. We understand education as internally diverse and controversial: it enables participation in bodies and creation of knowledge, in societally structured social relations, in occupationally organised work life and actualisation of unique personhood. (e.g., Heikkinen, 2011). In the context of this presentation, the focus is on the distinctiveness of vocational education as a promoter of occupational identity, work-process knowledge, success of work organisations and territorial economies. Yet, we recall the overlap with other forms of education. When narrowing the focus to women’s vocational education, we have identified three intertwined functions that are critical to its transformation, based on historical research in Finland from the late 18th century to the present day. (e.g. Ollila, 1993; Heikkinen, 1995; Henttinen et al, 1999; Heikkinen & Henriksson, 2001, 2002; Heikkinen et al, 1999; Korkiakangas, 2013; Kuusisto, 2004; Tiilikkala, 2004).

We name the three functions, operating individually and collectively as ideals and tensions through territorial transformations, as self-sufficiency, trade and family. Since they do not translate directly into English, it is necessary to show the change of the native linguistic expressions. Provisionally, self-sufficiency refers to the ability of the entity – individual, household, community, nation-state – to sustain itself productively and independently. Trade indicates that the entity relies on and prefers monetary exchange in its productive and reproductive maintenance. Family indicates concentration of the entity on caring across generations. Yet, their quality and transformation are linked to internal and external power constellations in the economy, politics and social relations. The importance, continuity and intertwinement of these functions manifests in the meanings of “vocation/occupation” (ammatti) in the native Finnish expression “means of livelihood” (elinkeino). It can refer to individual, collective or corporate economic activity and is still used as a synonym for industry. (e.g. Heikkinen, 1995, 2009; Heikkinen et al, 2001).

We are mainly rereading and meta-analysing historical studies (of ourselves and others), supplemented by some additional documentary materials, from the perspective of the previous conceptual framing, informed by genealogical and conceptual historical approaches. (Koselleck, 2002, Geiss et al. 2024). While in this context periodisation of the transformation must be simplified, we mention some qualitative and quantitative turning points from the late 18th century until recent times. They represent the changing political and economic landscape, where the conceptions of self-sufficiency, trade and family, related to womanliness, were shaping. (e.g. Heikkinen 1995, 2002; Ollila, 1993; Kuisma et al., 1999; Lietzén et al., 2015). We use the Wetterhoff Institute for Home Industry (currently divided into Hämeenlinna University of Applied Sciences and Tavastia education consortium) as a mirror demonstrating the historical changes in women's vocational education in the Finnish territory. The Institute was founded in 1885 as a Handicraft school for girls by Fredrika Wetterhoff, a determined businesswoman and feminist influencer of her time. “Home industry” and Wetterhoff Institute, through its mission, curricula and practices, is exemplary for the changes in the intertwined conceptions of self-sufficiency, trade and family, and the controversies between different sectors of industry in the history of women’s work and vocational education. The Institute exemplifies how women’s vocational education has shaped vocational pedagogy in general, since it was the first officially recognised vocational teacher education institute in Finland. (Seddiki, 2010; Friman, 2025). We link the story of the Institute to turning points in the political, economic, social and educational history. (e.g. Ollila, 1993; Kuisma et al, 1999; Suoranta, 2009; Uljas, 2012).

The shifts, visible also in the history of Wetterhoff Institute, were closely intertwined with its changing position in the global economic, political and biophysical landscape, manifested in divisions of work and education, and in intrinsic tensions and changes among social and linguistic sections, including differences between women and men. The framing of self-sufficiency, trade and family for individual and independent womanliness among the Swedish-speaking upper class differed fundamentally from the participation in collective livelihood in holistic rural communities. Their initiatives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries contributed to shaping the future of women’s vocational education. National democracy and independence, integrated with increasing equality and recognition of female and male occupations, were also reflected in integrated conceptions and institutions of vocational education. (Heikkinen, 2002; Heikkinen & Henriksson, 2001; Ylönen, 2003). However, changes in women’s vocational education are embedded in global divisions of work, occupations and industries between women and men. Therefore, interpretations of self-sufficiency, trade and family, surrounding womanliness, require cultural, spatial and temporal contextualisation. Recognising work, occupations and vocational education in the organisation of social metabolism, i.e. division and integration of human and nonhuman work assemblages, is an urgent challenge both for historical and (vocational) educational approaches. In the era of the Capitalocene (Moore, 2022), the perspective of “oikos”, management of the household, would integrate human world history with the planetary biophysical history. The history of women’s vocational education offers alternatives for caring for the “family” of all earthlings, and for revising ways of organising work, production and consumption, reducing their capitalogenic, monetary interpretations. For historical and vocational education studies, this implies historicising research with workers, practitioners and policymakers across cultural and biophysical contexts, to provide potential alternatives for content, aims, division and integration of work in vocational education. (Koivunen et al., 2024).

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