Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyse the professional training of the students of mining courses, regarding the career barriers and the strategies to reverse them. Twenty-seven interviews with programme heads and union leaders in the industry were carried out. The results show paradoxical discourses: the programme heads point out that the duty of the students is to adapt to the mining industry ‘without crying’, but also highlight their skills: orderly, responsible, meticulous; while the union leaders argue that the incorporation of women is a political decision, but not a conviction of the value that women add to the mining industry. They emphasise that higher education must train women to compete on an equal basis with men. In this sense, two educational paradigms emerge: gender equality and/or diversity. In the first, there is a model of ‘worker-miner-man’ as the unequivocal mentor of the mining industry, while the second questions this model, recognising the contributions of women to the mining industry.