Abstract

Internships are essential for student trajectories of Vocational-Technical Education (VTE), as they allow the reinforcement of learning achieved in the classroom and provide knowledge and vocational maturity that can only be completed in the labor context. This article shows the difficulties that female students face in male-dominated Vocational-Technical Education (VTE) programs during their experiences of internship in the workplace. To do this, based on 29 interviews of female graduates from these programs, we analyze the process of doing and undoing gender, and how women negotiate their gender when facing discrimination in the companies that host them as practitioners. The findings reveal women's adjustment strategies that combine resistance and acceptance in a context where companies do not adjust their dynamics and practices to integrate them. Instead, women adapt their behaviors to the cultural norms of implicit and explicit sexism in the learning workplaces. Thus, the arrival of all female students to the companies is an opening act, which requires them to conquer their own space configured from exceptionality. This situation reduces the potential of apprenticeships to drive successful transitions to the labor market.