When gender bumps into health and safety training: working conditions, readings and challenges drawn from a case study in an industrial chemicals company.

Health, safety and environmental issues are at present a social concern and an increasingly referred topic in the so called gender studies. This paper focuses on the relations between training, gender and risk perception in an industrial chemicals company, in Portugal, characterized by a mainly male population and by the presence of high occupational and environmental hazards. After characterizing the company and the training project that started up this reflection, the paper presents the reasons for its focus on gender followed by the essential methodological explanations: 14 interviews were made with male and female workers from the company; their content was transcribed from the audio recordings and it was systematically analyzed. A gender-attentive socio demographic analysis was also undertaken. Although at the beginning the company did not consider the gender issues as a problem nor was it the central topic of the training, which focused on the prevention of occupational and environmental hazards, the results reveal that the gender factor brought to light some working conditions, which so far have not been properly discussed within the group meetings. As a consequence, there is now room for the transformation of the representations on those working conditions.

Police training course for agents--entry into the profession and also into the distinction between men and women.

An exploratory study was conducted about the initial training of the Public Security Police with the aim to understand the role of this initial training in the distinction between the work of men and women in the police force. This study is part of a broader study about the entry of women into typically male professions. After documental analysis and interviews to students, trainers and school board members, it was concluded that women face greater difficulties in the access to the profession. Moreover, female qualities like the capacity to dialogue are devalued. Nevertheless, women represent an important work tool for the police force. The stigma of physical strength was also encountered and identified in the previous study conducted with elements of the police force. This fact leads us to believe that these stereotypes usually associated with women are defended by elements of the institution.

The entry of women in predominantly male professions: when training supports the search of alternative ways of organizing work time.

Following a research carried out on the integration of women in professional areas predominantly for men, this paper intends to present and debate the project of a training course which aims the transformation of the organization of work schedules in order to improve the well-being of the workers involved. The conception of training courses with this type of objective involves the confrontation and debate between the "invested skills" of the trainers and the "constituted skills" of the trainees. But will this paradigm remain intact when applied to training courses permeated by the gender dimension? That is what one will try to realize with the effective implementation of a training course, whose reflection will allow, ultimately, to enrich our understanding on gender, work, health and training.