Learning practices of femininity through gendered craft education in Finland

This paper discusses the processes and practices that link crafts and gender in the upbringing and education of girls. The paper is based on a study conducted among female primary school trainee teachers in Finland. The data are comprised of their experiences with crafts as schoolgirls. The methods of the study were memory work and writing of craft autobiographies. The processes that interlink gender and crafts are culturally established and maintained both through informal sociocultural learning and formal education at school. The impact of the gendered tradition of crafts is strong and affects the teaching of crafts at school in Finland. This became clear in the analysis of the processes of girls learning to become full members of a community of such femininity practices as textile crafts. The gender‐based teaching of crafts is an example of the unofficial gendered practices of the officially gender‐neutral school.