Women teachers and policemen: different career transition paths to becoming lawyers [Full text]
Edgar Burns [1]
| Abstract: Within a larger study of career transition to law, a number of individuals were identified as having come from two occupational clusters, policing and teaching. These interviewee occupations were for the most part each composed of one gender only – policemen and women teachers. These two groups are compared here across a series of points that illustrate ways that gender discourses both constitute and reflect social reproduction even within processes of social change. Aspects of personal experiences of these career changes that are briefly explored in this discussion include: origins of the two groups in terms of social class and education; gender and recent historical change; the differing connections to law of these two groups; subdued narratives of police changing to the ‘dark side’ to become lawyers; and differing teaching career sequences, including family care, on the pathway towards transition into law; law school and beyond.Keywords: Career transition, feminising professions, gender relations, lawyer, midcareer, policemen, sex segregation, women teachers |
[1] Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe University, Australia, arxione@gmail.com