Textbooks play an important role in teaching and learning and have a great impact on the students in aspects such as cultural values, norms, and attitudes towards social roles and identities. In particular, textbooks are of great importance to the education for gender equity. This study aims to explore the representation of genders to find if there is any bias and stereotype in a set of English textbooks used in primary schools in Guangzhou, a metropolitan city in South China with a population of more than ten million. The investigation looks at the textbooks from aspects of frequency of genders, the social roles females and males play in different settings, and the priority of mention when both genders are referred to on one occasion. The results suggest that stereotypes and imbalanced representation of genders and gender social roles are evident in the textbooks. The paper also gives some suggestions as to materials writing and teaching.
Keywords: EFL textbooks, Gender representation, Gender bias, Gender stereotype, Primary school.
Received: 15 March 2017 / Revised: 6 April 2017 / Accepted: 12 April 2017 / Published: 20 April 2017
This study examines the representation of gender in an English textbook series used in Chinese primary schools and finds evidence of stereotypes and imbalanced representation of gender. Besides, it gives some suggestions as to materials writing and teaching.
English has been the most widely learned foreign language in most Chinese schools. In China, formal English language instruction begins from the third grade and most schools offer English classes from as early as grade one. Because English is learnt as a foreign language in China and the learning happens mostly in the classroom, it can be said that materials, especially English textbooks prescribed by the local educational authorities play a vital role in English language education since the classroom teaching and learning is usually organized on the basis of the English textbook. Thus, the textbook is of great importance in terms of teaching and learning, and has a great impact on the students in aspects such as cultural values, norms, and attitudes towards social roles and identities. Specifically, the English textbooks are of great importance to the education of gender equity and shall not contain any content related with gender inequity and gender stereotypes, such as pictures implying gender bias or gender stereotypes. This study aims to explore the gender bias and stereotypes in a set of primary English textbooks used in schools in Guangzhou, a metropolitan city in South China boasting a population of more than ten million. The investigation will look at the whole series of textbook from the perspectives of frequency of both genders, the different roles females and males play in different settings, and the priority of mention when both genders are referred to on one occasion. The frequency of the females and males are mainly about the numbers and proportions of females and males in the illustrations, the male and female characters with names in the texts, and the famous characters mentioned in both the illustrations and the texts. This study will hopefully have some useful implications on issues of gender equality and gender education for curriculum planners, textbook writers and educational researchers in general. Next, we will present a review of relevant research literature about gender issues in textbooks with a focus on English language teaching, followed by sections on the data, method and the main analysis.
Gender stereotypes are unfair and sometimes false representations of the different social roles and identities of females and males, potentially contributing to the widening of the inequality between the two genders. Many researchers have noted the issue of gender stereotypes and inequality in textbooks. In an early study on sexism in language teaching materials (Hartman and Judd, 1978 ) the authors find that women are depicted as assuming passive, dependent, generally weak and physically attractive roles, while men as active, independent and generally strong . What's more, Kereszty (2009 ) suggests that gender-specific expectations, norms, and behaviors portrayed in children’s textbooks may contribute to social inequalities in the society. Students may be influenced when they are forming their own gender concepts and gender identities when they are learning the textbook. Therefore, these future citizens would perform and carry out their beliefs and expectations of their own genders, which in turn influence their future behaviors; when these people grow up and fully participate in the social life, they may stick to their inappropriate beliefs about gender roles, which may cause greater social inequalities between men and women.
Research suggests that gender stereotypes can be found in different kind of textbooks in almost every country of the world. Biemmi (2015 ) notes that the rigid, stereotyped view of gender roles is damaging for both genders when the inequalities and different expression of gender image between genders and stereotyped gender roles are found in elementary textbooks used in Italy. Elsewhere, a study on Greek-language textbooks for the third grade of the Greek primary school (Gouvias and Alexopoulos, 2016 ) shows a preference to male characters than female ones with the evidence that the male names referenced in the textbook are twice as frequent as those of females. In the traditional patriarchal society, Japan, a study (Lee, 2016 ) analyzing four popular series of English language textbooks reveals that although Japan has been attempting to promote a gender-equal society in recent decades, the gender inequity and stereotyping still widely exist, and women are still portrayed as men’s subordinates instead of individuals. Moreover, the gender inequality and gender stereotypes in muslin countries are much more evident. Elgar (2004 ) also reports a clear gender imbalance in text and illustrations in favor of males in the science textbooks used in the lower secondary school in Brunei. Similarly, in Pakistan, a study examines twenty-four textbooks including Urdu, English and Social Studies from Grade One to Grade Eight (Ullah and Skelton, 2013 ) and concludes that these textbooks are embedded with gender-biased messages and stereotypical representations of the two genders.
Many researchers have expressed concerns about the negative influence of sexism and gender stereotypes on schoolchildren. Scott (1980 ) argues that textbooks have a considerable impact on children’s attitudes, values, and behaviors as the children shall spend a great deal of time reading and learning them at school. Specifically, it is also argued that gender stereotyping in a social group (like schools) may decrease the students’ achievement motivation and encourage them to set lower school aspirations and lower their interest in certain subjects (Scheye and Gilroy, 1994 ).
Gender representations and stereotypes have been a much-discussed research topic, with English language textbooks receiving being a relatively less attention (Han, 2012 ). Among these studies, a project by Shi (2001 ) points out that the textbooks used in China is anything but genderless or neutral in gender, revealing the characteristics of the traditional patriarchy society in both direct and indirect way. In a study on the gender stereotypes in English textbook used in Chinese universities, Meng (2008 ) finds that sexism towards female exists in seven spoken English textbooks for College level students. There are also articles discussing the gender stereotypes in the English textbooks for secondary schools. Wang (2007) finds that the stereotyped sex roles are widely present in the EFL textbooks in China after careful investigation of four series of EFL textbook widely used in different school levels in China. Tao (2006 ) also discovers the unbalanced sex roles in English textbooks for Senior High schools. As for Junior English textbooks, Zhu (2012 ) finds the different presentation of gender roles in Ren'ai, a well-received popular English textbook series for Junior high schools. Wang (2010 ) compares two different versions of English textbook published before and after the New Curriculum Reform in China with the conclusion that the gender stereotype still exists through the change of the New Curriculum Reform.
Notwithstanding the abundance in the research of English language textbooks, relatively few studies have been carried out to examine textbooks used in primary schools. One of the few studies has been Zhang and Yang (2003 ) investigation of three versions of primary English textbooks concludes that these textbooks are associated with gender stereotypes. So far, the representation of gender inequity and gender stereotypes in the English and other school textbooks has been studied in many countries and has been an important topic in educational studies in China as well. These studies suggest that many school textbooks, including English language teaching textbooks, are problematic in their handling of gender representations.
3.1. Data
This study investigates the representation of gender in a popular series of English textbooks used in primary schools in, Guangzhou, a major city in South China. Over 930,000 pupils in Guangzhou are required to use this set of textbooks. Two research questions are to be answered: a) is there any gender inequity in the textbooks? b) if so, what kind of gender stereotypes is there in the textbooks? The target materials of this study are the English textbooks officially designated for primary schools in Guangzhou, known as Success with English (Success with English, 2012 ) (SWE). This set of English textbook is written by authors from the Leeds Metropolitan University and the experts from the Department of Textbook Development of Guangzhou Bureau of Education. It is based on the local context and the language development level of pupils in Guangzhou, and meets the requirements and objectives of the National English Curriculum Standard (Ministry of Education, 2007 ). This series of English textbooks has altogether eight books ranging from Grade Three to Grade Six: 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, 6A and 6B. All books except 6B contain six modules and a single unit to look back at these modules while Book 6B contains only six modules and each module has two units, so there are altogether thirteen units in 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, 6A, and twelve units in 6B.
3.1.1. Data Analysis
To answer the research questions, the selected materials were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The textbooks were analyzed by a) counting the frequency of the male and female figures in the illustrations in a quite straightforward way, and b) counting the number of different names for females and males appearing throughout the whole book, and c) looking at the gender characteristics of those famous people in both the texts and illustrations. The qualitative analysis is applied to investigate the gender roles which consists a) people’s social roles: recording the occupations choices for females and males figures in the textbooks, and b) family roles: noting the distribution of housework and family activities, and c) the priority when both genders are mentioned at the same time in the text. All the units in the eight textbooks were examined.
4.1. Gender Proportions
4.1.1. Gender Proportion in Illustrations
The texts are accompanied with a large quantity of pictures and illustrations. The investigation of the illustrations would be mainly on the numbers and the proportions of male and female figures in the textbooks. The statistical results are shown in Table 1.
Table-1. The number and proportion of male and female figures in illustrations
total |
male |
ratio |
female |
ratio |
|
3A |
410 |
225 |
54.88% |
185 |
45.12% |
3B |
305 |
161 |
52.79% |
144 |
47.21% |
4A |
338 |
202 |
59.76% |
136 |
40.24% |
4B |
515 |
320 |
62.14% |
195 |
37.86% |
5A |
271 |
175 |
64.58% |
96 |
35.42% |
5B |
315 |
211 |
66.98% |
104 |
33.02% |
6A |
323 |
202 |
62.54% |
121 |
37.46% |
6B |
290 |
190 |
65.52% |
100 |
34.48% |
total |
2767 |
1686 |
60.93% |
1081 |
39.07% |
Source: Success with English (2012 )
It is found that the number and the ratio of male and female figures appeared in the illustrations are not even. The number of male illustrations in all eight textbooks is much greater than that of females. In addition, the ratio of male and female illustrations is not even. On the whole, male illustrations make up for 60.93% of all the illustrations while female ones only take a rather smaller proportion, which is 39.07% in the textbooks. Although the exact number and proportion for each textbook differs, the general tendency is that the frequency for male figures is higher than the female figures in the illustrations. Therefore, it can be concluded that a) there exists gender inequality in the illustrations and b) the frequency of male figures is greater than that of female figures in illustrations in the English Textbook for Guangzhou.
4.1.2. Gender Proportion in Texts
Both female and male names are widely used to address characters in the textbooks. Now, characters with names appearing in the texts are counted in this section. The people with names are counted only once and will not be counted again if they appear more than once. The numerical results are shown in Table 2.
Table-2. The frequency and proportion of people with name in the texts
total |
male |
ratio |
female |
ratio |
|
3A |
44 |
24 |
54.55% |
20 |
45.45% |
3B |
20 |
13 |
65% |
7 |
35% |
4A |
10 |
3 |
30% |
7 |
70% |
4B |
15 |
9 |
60% |
6 |
40% |
5A |
18 |
9 |
50% |
9 |
50% |
5B |
12 |
6 |
50% |
6 |
50% |
6A |
14 |
8 |
57.14 |
6 |
42.86% |
6B |
26 |
26 |
100% |
0 |
0% |
total |
159 |
98 |
61.64% |
61 |
38.36% |
Source: Success with English (2012 )
It can be found that the number and the ratio of male and female figures with names in the texts vary across different volumes of the textbook set. In total, the number of male figures with names in all the eight textbooks is 98, which is about 61.64% of all names mentioned in the text, while the number of female figures with names is 61, taking only 38.36% of all people with names in the text. The number and proportion of male and female figures in Book 5A and 5B are the same, indicating the equality between the male and female figures in the texts. Although in Book 4A we observed 7 new female figures and only 3 new male figures, it does not change the imbalanced number and proportion of male and female figures in the whole textbook set. The extremist situation is in Book 6B where no new female characters are mentioned while 26 new male characters are introduced in the texts. Therefore, a) there exists gender inequality in the male and female figure with name in the texts and b) the frequency and proportion of male figures are far more than that of female figures in the concerned textbooks.
4.2. Celebrities
Celebrities and their stories are often exploited in English language teaching materials. In SWE, the celebrities are mainly introduced in three books: 3A, 6A and 6B, so the numbers of the famous people mentioned in these textbooks are counted to examine the frequency of the male and female celebrities. The investigation would focus on the number and the proportion of the famous females and males introduced in the textbook, including the illustrations and texts. The famous people mentioned in the texts are counted only once and shall not be counted repeatedly. The statistical results of the number and proportion of famous people appearing in the textbooks are shown in Table 3 and Table 4.
Table-3. Number and gender ratio celebrities in the textbooks
total |
male |
ratio |
female |
ratio |
|
3A |
5 |
4 |
80% |
1 |
20% |
6A |
7 |
4 |
50% |
3 |
50% |
6B |
20 |
20 |
100% |
0 |
0 |
total |
32 |
28 |
87.5% |
4 |
12.5% |
Source: Success with English (2012 )
Table-4. Names of celebrities
| 3A | Monkey King, Charles Robert Darwin, Isaac Newton, Qian Xuesen | Snow White |
| 6A | Father Christmas, Columbus, Neil Armstrong, Yang Liwei | J. K. Rowling, Song Qingling, Marie Curie |
| 6B | Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Xian Xinghai, Qi Baishi, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Bell, Mo Yan, Liu Xiang, Xu Beihong, Walt Disney, Mozart, Langston Hughes, Steve Jobs, Dr Sun Yat-sen, Nicolaus Copernicus, William Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Beethoven |
Source: Success with English (2012 )
It is found that there is a notable gap between the number and the ratio of famous females and males introduced in the textbooks. In total, the number of famous males in the textbooks is 27, which takes a greater proportion of 87.1% of all famous personalities mentioned in the textbooks, while the number of famous females is 4, which is only 12.9% of all the famous people in the textbooks. The most extreme situation happens in 6B, where no famous female is mentioned but twenty new famous male are introduced in Famous People in Module Three. Therefore, based on the findings above, it can be said that a) there exists gender inequality in the famous people introduced in the textbooks and b) the appearance frequency of famous males are considerably higher than that of females.
4.3. Gender Roles
Gender roles also need to be taken into consideration when it comes to the equality of genders. In this study, gender roles are discussed in terms of different social roles, including the occupational choices for different genders in the textbooks, the different family roles, which are the different distributions of family housework, and the priority of mention for females and males.
4.4. Social Roles
The social roles refer to the different roles people assume in the social life. In this study, it is considered the same as the occupational roles people take in the society. Here, the social roles of different genders shall be distinguished through locating the key word associated with a certain occupation, checking the settings of related illustrations and some linguistic clues that could reference people’s occupation in the textbooks. The numbers and varieties of the occupations taken by females and males in the textbooks are recorded. An occupation shall be recorded only once even if it appears for more than one time. The findings are presented in Table 5.
Table-5. Occupational choices for females and males
numbers |
Varieties of occupations | |
male |
36 |
student; driver; teacher; farmer; painter; builder; doctor; policeman; cook; king; sportsman; factory worker; writer; fireman; English lawyer; American footballer; Chinese teacher; English teacher; musician; math teacher; PE teacher; fisherman; lawyer; scientist; playwright; artist; musician; president; inventor; novelist; runner; painter; filmmaker; actor; leader; computer game-maker |
both |
3 |
astronaut; sportspeople; vendor |
female |
15 |
student; teacher; saleswoman; nurse; reporter; driver; farmer; English teacher; music teacher; math teacher; PE teacher; Chinese teacher; train-driver; scientist; leader |
Source: Success with English (2012 )
There are altogether 52 kinds of occupations mentioned in the whole textbook series. It is evident that the number of occupation varieties for females and males is quite distinctive. For males, there are 36 different occupations mentioned in the textbooks while there are only 15 different occupations for females, which is less than half of the number of occupation varieties for males. This means that the occupation varieties for males take a much larger portion of 69.23%, while the occupation varieties for females take only 30.77%. Therefore, we can arrive at the conclusion that a) there exists gender inequality in the occupation varieties for females and males mentioned in the textbooks and b) the varieties and proportion of occupation varieties for males are far more than that for females in the concerned textbooks.
4.5. Family Roles
Family roles refer to the distribution of different roles or division of housework between females and males within the family. In most cases, the main distribution of family roles is that of father and mother. The family roles are investigated with reference to the illustrations and the texts that indicate the distribution of housework for fathers and mothers. The activities in the illustrations and texts for fathers and mothers shall be recorded. The findings are shown in Table 6.
The number of different activities for males as fathers is seven and the number for females is twelve, which is almost twice of that of males. Males are usually portrayed as doing easy and relaxing housework and enjoying themselves by reading books and watching TV, while females are usually doing housework like cleaning, shopping, washing and cooking. From the perspective of gender equality, housework needs to be shared by members of the family rather than just be the sole responsibility of the wife.
Table-6. Activities of dads and moms
males as fathers |
females as mothers |
|
| 3A | Watching TV Reading newspaper | Cooking Cleaning |
| 3B | Watering the flowers | Setting the table Playing with cat Washing fruits Shopping |
| 4A | Watching TV | Cooking Teaching kids |
| 4B | Reading books Cleaning Eating in the kitchen Watching TV |
Caring for children Shopping Cooking Reading |
| 5A | Planting flowers | Smelling flowers |
| 5B | Shopping | |
| 6A | Feeding the pigs and horses Planting treesGrowing flowers and vegetables | Feeding the chickens and ducks |
| 6B | Cleaning Giving presents (red packet) | |
| total | 7 | 12 |
Source: Success with English (2012 )
Therefore, in the textbooks, the distribution of different activities and duties for females and males is uneven. It can then be said that a) there exists a gender inequality between females and males and b) the varieties and types of house activities for males as dads are far more relaxing than that for females in the English Textbook for Guangzhou.
Table-7. Mom in apron
book |
page of appearance |
number |
3A |
P11, P26 |
2 |
3B |
P38, P39 |
2 |
4B |
P14, P14, P15 |
3 |
6B |
P3, P30, P30, P30 |
4 |
Source: Success with English (2012 )
An interesting phenomenon is recorded as well. In the illustrations, females as moms usually wear the apron, and males as dads do not have any special clothing. The number and frequency of females as moms wearing apron in the illustrations of the textbooks are counted. There are altogether eleven times when the female characters as moms in the family are illustrated as wearing apron and male characters are never dressed in apron in the illustrations. Therefore, based on the findings above, the conclusion could be arrived at a) there are still gender inequality between females and males in the illustrations of the textbook, and b) there still exists gender stereotypes in the representation of male characters and female characters in family settings.
Priority
The priority of females and males are also very important when the two genders are mentioned at the same time. Although the occasions where both females and males appear in the same text are rare, the investigation will focus on the priority of introducing both genders, and the priority of speaking characters. The findings about the priority of person are presented in Table 8.
There are altogether 21 texts where both females and males appear in the whole series. It is notable that the number of priority for males and for females is not the same. Males were mentioned before females for 13 times, while females were mentioned before males for only 8 times, much less than that of males. The male priority takes a relatively larger proportion in these texts. This seems to suggests that a) there exists a gender inequality with regards to the priority of mention when females and males appear in the same text and b) the times and proportion of males first are more than that of females when both genders are mentioned at the same time.
Table-8. Priority
book |
male first |
female first |
3A |
0 |
1 |
3B |
2 |
0 |
4A |
2 |
0 |
4B |
1 |
3 |
5A |
3 |
0 |
5B |
1 |
0 |
6A |
2 |
2 |
6B |
2 |
2 |
total |
13 |
8 |
Source: Success with English (2012 )
The findings of this study provide evidence suggesting the existence of gender inequity and stereotypes in SWE. Among all the illustrations in the whole series of textbooks, on the one hand, males are the dominant gender, taking 60.93% of all characters in the illustrations; on the other hand, females are the minority gender with only 39.07%. The main reason for males’ dominance in terms of numbers and proportions among both genders is that one of the sections in every chapter of this series of English textbooks is the story between Aki the alien and two boy students named Ben and Jiamin Chen. Seldom are any girl students or other females mentioned. What's more, this section usually contains six or more pictures, thus the male characters in this chapter would be responsible for the male dominance of the numbers and proportions in the illustrations. In addition, the leading characters are an English boy named Ben, a Chinese boy named Jiamin Chen, a blonde girl named Janet from an English speaking country, and a Chinese girl called Xiaoling. The most frequently mentioned character is Jiamin Chen, whose frequency of appearance is twice of the combination of Janet and Xiaoling, so it is evident that the male characters are of a higher visibility than the female characters in the illustrations of the textbooks. Apart from the illustrations, the characters with specific names mentioned in the text are counted and calculated. Overall, of the 159 people mentioned with their names, male characters account for 61.64%, so the preference for male characters over female ones is quite obvious in the texts. As for the famous personalities mentioned in the textbook series, the varieties, numbers and proportions of famous males are several times of that of the famous females. Famous males are from all walks of life and in a variety of professions but the famous females are all from the literary world, or politics and physics.
This study examined the representation of genders in SWE, an English textbook series used in primary schools in Guangzhou. It can be concluded that stereotypes and imbalanced representation of genders and gender social roles are evident in the textbooks. On the whole, the whole series of English textbook are well written and the content in the textbooks are quite authentic and suitable in real life situations. However, it could be better if the authors of the textbooks set straight the stereotypes and problematic representations of gender roles in the textbooks. Here are some suggestions: a) pay more attention to the evenness of the number of male characters and female characters in the material including illustrations and texts; b) avoid stereotypical or false representations of gender social roles; c) use more gender-neutral pronouns to refer to persons; for example, use “they” instead of "he" or "she" if possible. In addition, the teachers should also be more sensitive to issues of gender inequity and stereotypes in language teaching and try to avoid the use of sexist or stereotyped language. Despite the limitation that this study only investigated one textbook series, we believe the findings are significant due to the popularity of SWE. Further studies are certainly needed to compare several different sets of English textbooks across China so as to present a fuller picture of gender representation in English language teaching materials in China.
| Funding: This study received no specific financial support. |
| Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. |
| Contributors/Acknowledgement: All authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study. |
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