When Jamie Hadley applied to Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School, she planned to study cosmetology. Less than a year later, instead of cutting cuticles, she’s changing carburetors.

“I’ve grown up around cars all my life,’’ the Norton teen said. “I just didn’t think I would actually do it.’’

The 15-year-old sophomore embodies a goal of national educational policy since at least 1976: more students pursuing “nontraditional’’ careers, landing in jobs that employ less than 25 percent of their gender. At the South Easton school, it’s admittedly a work in progress. This year, 235 students there — more than 17 percent, a few ticks below the statewide average — were enrolled in nontraditional programs, but it’s a number that’s been on the rise since at least 2009, according to data provided by the school.

Like Hadley, many of them didn’t intend to defy tradition. As at most other vocational schools, that happens organically, nurtured by the way students are introduced to various options. First-year students spend months trying each of the school’s 20 programs, with a focus on gender inclusivity, before they choose, said vocational director Leslie Weckesser. The school emphasizes that shops are not gender-based, she said, and reinforces that message by having upperclass students who have followed nontraditional paths talk with first-year students.

And research shows that last step can make a difference, said Mimi Lufkin, executive director of the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity. The alliance is a Pennsylvania-based consortium that advocates for educational equity and workforce diversity, goals promoted by the federal Carl D. Perkins Act.

Since the federal law on vocational school funding was amended in 1976 to include language on gender equity, any vocational school receiving federal money has been required to implement programs encouraging nontraditional enrollment. Although federal officials flag schools not making progress in this area, said Lufkin, she could not recall a single case when a school lost its funding for repeated failure. Perhaps predictably, then, according to federal data collected by her group, there’s been no measurable progress on nontraditional career paths either nationally or statewide since 2008-’09.

“Progress has been slow in really changing the stereotype around career fields,’’ Lufkin said. “Our society socializes us to really engage in occupations that are traditional’’ for men and women.

At Southeastern, at least, it’s the boys who seem far more bound by tradition.

The numbers are stark: Girls pursuing nontraditional careers at the school outnumber their male counterparts by a ratio of more than 20 to 1.

“With the boys,’’ said Weckesser, “a lot aren’t thinking about nontraditional shops.’’

Blaze Osborne of Brockton is an exception. Osborne thought he’d study culinary arts, deemed traditional for males, his freshman year.

Now a 16-year-old sophomore, he is enrolled in the female-dominated health services program.

He said some of his friends tease him for wanting to become a male nurse, but he doesn’t let it bother him. He is one of three boys in the program.

“I like being in the shop,’’ he said of his health services class. “And in 20 years,’’ he added about the friends who tease him, “we’ll be in two completely different places.’’

Far more girls at the school seem comfortable doing what they enjoy. “More females are finding that they like to put things together and take them apart,’’ said Weckesser.

Carly Davis, a 17-year-old senior, said she’s always been a hands-on person.

She intended to join the cosmetology program when she completed primary school in East Bridgewater but found she had more fun in the electrical shop. There are 13 girls in the program.

Davis said her first day in the shop was intimidating. She said the boys teased her until they realized she could perform the same tasks.

“Up until recently, I was just not confident that going out into the [electrician’s] field would be the right thing for me, because I’m a female,’’ she said. “But it’s just one of those things — you just have to do it.’’

Sophomore Erin Murray said she dreamed of pursuing film, but once she grew older she couldn’t see herself making a career of it.

As one of 13 girls in the automotive mechanics shop, the 15-year-old feels she has overcome classroom gender barriers, but she worries about the professional world.

Employers “prefer to see us at desks instead of at a car,’’ she said of her gender. “I prefer to be a mechanic than a clerk.’’

Last year, the school created an after-school support group to help nontraditional students navigate academic and social problems they might encounter, placing guidance counselor David Joseph and legal and protective services teacher Pamela Foster at its helm.

“One of our goals is that if we have a student who is struggling,’’ Foster said, “. . . to let them know that strengths are different, and that all should be proud of whatever they can do.’’

Some parents worry that a child who chooses a nontraditional career is hindering his or her chances at future success and financial stability, Joseph said.

Rather than try to change their opinion — a task he says is nearly impossible — he works with parents to help them understand how many different jobs are available in each career field.

“You choose plumbing and they think you’re going to be a plumber, and that’s just not it,’’ he said. “There are 30 different career paths just in that plumbing field, so that’s what parents need to understand.’’

Shana Loveday, who graduated from Southeastern’s electrical program in 2011, said being the only girl in her electrical shop prepared her for a professional environment. Like many other nontraditional students at the school, she hadn’t planned to join the field she did.

“I actually went to Southeastern anticipating to be culinary arts,’’ she said. “I had never really played with electricity or built anything with it.’’

But after two years of training with Bunker Hill Community College’s Electrical Power Utility Program, the 22-year-old works in Quincy as an underground line worker for Eversource.

Although she is one of a handful of women in her department, she said she doesn’t feel that the men treat her differently.

Jacob Rushia, the only male in the cosmetology program, said he left the Norton public schools for a more diverse high school experience.

Now an 18-year-old junior, Rushia said he used to worry that other boys would judge him for his choice, but he has since gained confidence in his decision.

“If you want to do something that makes you happy, but someone is telling you ‘no, you shouldn’t do that,’’’ he said, “you should go with it, even though someone is telling you not to.’’

Bret Hauff can be reached at bret.hauff@globe.com. Follow him @b_hauff.