Sammendrag
Police work has traditionally been men?s work, and physical skills and strengths have been looked upon as very important in solving conflicts. Sport and physical training therefore, has always been and still is an important part of the education of police officers. Over the last years great emphasis is also put upon verbal skills and communication in conflict solving. Physical skills and good verbal skills are often viewed as gender stereotyped qualities. The question asked in this paper is therefore whether these gender stereotypes are mirrored in the police students? attitudes of today. The data presented is derived from a questionnaire answered by 360 police students who started their education at the police academy in Norway in 2005. The results show that both sexes believed that men were best suited for police work which demanded physical skills, while women were best suited for police work demanding the use of verbal communication. More men than women reported that they had sufficient abilities to solve conflicts demanding physical skills, although the female students participated as much in exercise and sport as the males. The results are discussed in relation to Bordieu?s conception of symbolic power and physical capital. Women and men seem to be placed under a symbolic power, where men are physically superior, and where women bring with them less physical capital into police work. Although women seem to carry with them other forms of capital such as verbal skills and cultural capital into their police work-- capital that better fits the ideal of good policing.
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