Education for Family Farms and Gender Aspects in Croatia
Anita Silvana ILAK PERŠURIĆ, Đurđica ŽUTINIĆ
Pages: 43-49
Summary
Authors discuss the educational structure in Croatia and education of family farm members. The points of this research are lack of formal education in farm occupation and specific gender issues. Along with education levels of all population in Croatia that has been improving since WW II the agricultural population was following this trend but much slower. In farming occupation persons are in general less educated than in non farming occupations what is also related to gender aspect. Since very few studies in Croatia concern education of farmers, and rare respect gender issues in education, our paper tried to highlight specifics regarding these two topics. From our research it is evident that women on family farms are educated mainly for non-agricultural occupations compared to men who have agricultural education two times more then women. Correlation analysis showed highly related connections of age, education and family size to knowledge about farm tasks. Younger, more educated women have more knowledge about “modern” farm tasks like bookkeeping, laws and taxes and selling agricultural products, while older and less educated have more knowledge about “traditional” tasks like gardening, plant growing and animal breeding. Knowledge about mechanized work was graded as lowest among other farm tasks because it was seen as a masculine task and of no interest for women. Knowledge about “modern’’ tasks is necessary for market oriented farm business in this light woman’s education becomes a limitation, therefore the non formal (extension service) and formal education systems (secondary and tertiary) should introduce new programmes and subjects to farm and household economics.
Keywords
education; family farms; Croatia
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