Cultural foundations of Latina resilience in STEM trades: the case of Chilean vocational teachers

This paper examines the cultural foundations of resilience among Latinas in STEM through the case of Chilean women teaching in Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs linked to male-dominated skilled trades. Based on semi-structured interviews, the study explores how culturally grounded repertoires shape women’s personal and professional trajectories and support their navigation of structural and symbolic barriers in masculinized STEM contexts. Participants’ narratives foreground two culturally embedded values, aperrada and aguerrida, as central to their interpretations of adversity and persistence. Aperrada conveys endurance and perseverance under constraint, while aguerrida reflects a more assertive and resistant stance toward exclusion. Enacted through everyday practices, these values function as culturally and historically situated forms of resilience that sustain women’s participation and legitimacy in fields historically dominated by men.