Gender Issues in Junior High School English Textbooks

• Main Authors: Yun-Shan Wang, 王芸姍
• Other Authors: Teh-suan Liou
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/13453323899525211701

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 英語教學研究所 === 103 === Abstract Gender Issues in EFL Junior High School English Textbooks By Yun-Shan Wang The present study aims to investigate if there is gender stereotype presented in junior high school English textbooks in Taiwan. Three series of textbooks were selected for analysis of gender issues, including Hanlin, Kangshan, and Nani, each consisting of six books from Book One to Book Six. Content analysis was adopted to analyze gender over-representation in textbook dialogues, sexist language, and occupational roles. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were applied to yield more comprehensive results. Data were collected from areas including the amount of dialogues initiation, turns taken, and characters for male characters and female characters in junior high school English textbook dialogues for quantitative analyses. Also, the quantitative approach was further used to analyze the occupations for male characters and female characters in junior high school English textbooks. Moreover, sexist language presented in the three series of textbooks was identified. At the end, the qualitative analysis was further applied to analyze occupational roles for male characters and female characters. The results show that gender bias still exists in textbooks. As for textbook dialogues, the goal of equal learning opportunities still has room to be improved. Hanlin series and Nani series show over-representation on female characters while Kangshan series over-represents male characters. Regarding to the sexist language, the courtesy titles such as “Miss” and “Mrs.” and the use of suffix -man such as fisherman and businessman are still present in the three series of textbooks. In terms of gender roles, male characters have more diverse occupations than female characters. However, the occupational roles for male characters are not more prestigious than female characters. It is suggested that publishers should be made aware of the gender issues in junior high school English textbooks. In so doing, equal learning opportunities could be more likely to be guaranteed and gender-equality better achieved. Key words: Gender stereotype, gender equality