The Representation of Gender in a Popular Primary School EFL Textbook Series in China

Abstract

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.