Gender Representation in the School Text Books:A Comparatives Study

Abstract

The present study aims at exploring gender representation in the current Arabic, French and English school textbooks which are used in the Algerian Primary, Middle and Secondary Schools. It was hypothesized, in general, that the design process of these textbooks is done from an unawareness perspective. More particularly, it was hypothesized that these textbooks maintain females’ invisibility as well as the gender stereotypes, make use of sexist language forms and portray the males and the females frequently interacting with each other. Regarding comparison, it was hypothesized that gender bias appears in different degrees in such textbooks. Methodologically, content analysis is employed to collect data. After the data had been collected, it was found: first, the females were portrayed more invisible than the males mostly in all the textbooks. Second, both genders were mostly stereotypically portrayed regarding both the traits and the roles except the findings that indicated that the females were mostly represented more positive than the males in most of the textbooks and that both genders were portrayed in prestigious and low status professions in all the textbooks. Third, the females were represented in more gender-mixed interactions than in female-female interactions in all the textbooks. Fourth, all the textbooks make use of sexist language, but in different degrees. Regarding the section of comparison, it was found that, first, the females were the most invisible in the Arabic textbooks. Second, the English textbooks were the most gender stereotypical regarding the traits and the entire textbooks were equally gender stereotypical, regarding the roles. Third, the French textbooks were the most gender-unbiased regarding the interaction among both genders. Finally, the English and the Arabic textbooks were more linguistically-biased than the French ones. .