Gendered learning environments in managerial work

Abstract

The aim is to investigate female and male managers' learning environments with particular focus on their opportunities for and barriers to learning and career development in the managerial work of a male-dominated industrial company. In the case study 42 managers, 15 women and 27 men in the company were interviewed. The findings demonstrate that the male managers were provided with significantly richer opportunities to participate in activities conducive to learning and career development than were female managers. The opportunities and barriers in terms of horizontal and vertical manager mobility, senior managers' support, strategic networks, career system, freedom of action and gender stereotypes operated simultaneously as opportunities and barriers to learning and career development for the female and male managers, respectively. The conclusion is that the expansive-restrictive continuum developed by Fuller and Unwin (2004) does not cover the extent to which gender operates as a condition for learning and career development, nor the extent to which the gender order influences the learning environment. Therefore we suggest that the expansive-restrictive model of learning environments would benefit from incorporating or, at least considering, gender dimensions in order to form a gender-sensitive model to analyse learning environments in workplaces.