Rozbieżność struktury wykształcenia kobiet i mężczyzn w PRL. Pomiędzy polityką państwa a indywidualnymi wyborami edukacyjnymi

The divergence in the structure of the education of men and women in the Polish People’s Republic. Between the state policy and individual educational choices (Summary)In the era of the Polish People’s Republic, the gender divergence in the structure of education grew in parallel with an increase in the number of women who obtained secondary and higher school education. The analysis given in the article supplements our knowledge on the topic with details on the analysis presented here, it is possible to specify two factors which, while linked to the educational policy pursued in communist Poland, stood behind the divergence under discussion. First, vocational schools offered training in trades reserved mainly for men, which led women to opt for high school general education. Second, women’s access to some ‘male’ schools was formally restricted. Women’s educational advantage, which was the result of the policy conducted by the state in the fi eld of education, can thus be regarded as having been an unintentional side effect of the reforms introduced in Poland after the Second World War.