Salminen-Karlsson, Minna | Sweden
I got my Ph.D. in Education at Linköping University in 1999 for a thesis on gender reform in engineering education. Since 2000 I have been at the Department of Technology and Social Change at Linköping University, in the research group Technology, practice and identity.
During these years, I have mainly done research, but I have also been responsible for the gender specialisation of the ESST International master’s course, given by my department. In addition, I have been lecturing on gender at several Swedish engineering education institutions, worked with gender issues at university level in Linköping and been responsible (together with a representative from the Institute of technology) for creating a new, optional conclusion for computer engineering education.
Project at IAS-STS: Gender in Technology Education
My main research interest has been gender in engineering education. Lately, I have widened my interest to encompass gender in technology education in general. Currently I am working on two projects. One of them is about “County technology schools”, a Swedish initiative to stimulate the interest of young people, especially girls, in technology and technology education. I am interested in the way technology is conceptualised in this non-formal educational environment. The other project is about university-industry doctoral studies, where I plan to study the two knowledge environments of academia and R&D intensive industry through doctoral students who travel between these two environments. I am also interested in how these two environments are gendered.
Outside my interest on gender and technology, I am engaged in a research project on "The instruction of the church and the gender construction of Catholic youth".
Generally, I have an interest in qualitative methodology, especially the ethnographic tradition in educational research, and grounded theory.
Working Program
Technology comes in different shapes to girls, boys and engineers-to be. Technology education, technology concepts and gender
Lately I have been interested in looking at the concept of technology as it is used in different kinds of technology education. In particular, I have got acquainted with technology as it is presented in Swedish “County technology schools” – an initiative to increase the failing interest of young people in taking up technology studies – and engineering education. My interest concerns especially the way these concepts of technology are related to gender.
During my stay at IAS-STS I plan to analyse my material from the county technology school and write a report, as well as lay a foundation to later, more theoretical articles about the way technology is presented to young children in this context, especially how this institution is working with the masculinity of technology. In parallel I will refine an earlier paper on the concept of technology and gender in Swedish engineering education, and hopefully widen its scope of it into a more international one. This far I see the county technology school as presenting a more gender-inclusive alternative to the way technology is conceptualised in engineering education, and I hope that these two lines of thought will finally merge into a constructive criticism and new perspectives on the lack of women in engineering.
Selected Publications
Salminen-Karlsson, Minna (1997) Reforming a Masculine Bastion: State-supported Reform of Engineering Education. In B. Berner (ed.) Gendered Practices. Feminist Studies of Technology and Society. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. 187-202.
Salminen-Karlsson, Minna (1997) Why Do They Never Talk about the Girls? In R. Lander, R & A Adam (eds) Women in Computing. Exeter: Intellect . 160-172.
Salminen-Karlsson, Minna (1999) Bringing Women into Computer Engineering. Curriculum Reform Processes at Two Universities of Technology. Linköping Studies in Education and Psychology; 60. Linköping: Linköpings Universitet, Institutionen för pedagogik och psykologi.
Salminen-Karlsson Minna. (2002) Gender-inclusive Computer Engineering Education: Two Attempts at Curriculum Change, The International Journal of Engineering Education, vol.18, nr 4, 2002, sid. 430-437.
Salminen-Karlsson Minna. (2003) Situating gender in situated learning – experiences from a computer company. In E. Gunnarsson Ewa et al (eds) Where Have All the Structures Gone? Stockholm: Stockholm University, Center for Women’s Studies