Gendered Privilege and Masculinity-Related Burdens in Manufacturing Internships: Male Vocational Students’ Workplace Learning Experiences in Indonesia

Gender research in vocational education has primarily examined women’s exclusion, while male students’ experiences of privilege and masculinity-related pressure remain underexplored. This study examined how male vocational students experienced gender-based privilege, encountered psychological and pedagogical burdens, and interpreted their relationship during manufacturing internships. The study employed a qualitative design informed by a constructivist–interpretivist paradigm and Masculinity Studies, particularly Connell’s relational approach to masculinities. The study analyzed semi-structured interviews with 61 male students from two vocational secondary schools in Bekasi, Indonesia, using reflexive thematic analysis. Participants reported that gendered expectations associating men with strength, readiness, courage, and independence facilitated early access to core technical tasks, supervisory trust, and valuable learning opportunities. The same expectations intensified performance demands, physical workloads, risk exposure, restricted help-seeking, and limited pedagogical support. Participants interpreted this position through normalization, ambivalence, and critical reflection. Some proposed competency-based task allocation, equitable supervision, and safer learning environments. The study introduces conditional access privilege as a gendered position in which access to valuable technical learning resources must be maintained through masculine performance, generating psychological pressure and pedagogical vulnerability. The findings support internship practices that separate competency assessment, task allocation, supervision, and learning support from gendered expectations.