A comparative analysis on gender representation in secondary school, 6th,7th, and 8th grades, EFL course books used by Turkish Ministry of National Education between the years 1999 and 2023

This thesis seeks to disclose how gender roles are portrayed and how these portrayals have changed in EFL course books used by MoNE throughout the twenty-four years 1999-2023. The significance of the study is highlighted by the fact that the norms and values that students learn from textbooks will influence not only the gender roles they perceive to be associated with themselves but also their current and future attitudes toward the other gender, their academic career, and the sociological relations. An essential social issue that has been the subject of numerous studies and sparked many debates was analyzed by an adopted framework embodying Porecca's (1984) Framework, Kress and Leeuwen's (2006) Metafunctional Analysis, and Kabira and Masinjila's (1997) Gender Analysis. The findings were interpreted based on Fairclough's (1995) three-dimensional CDA model. The underlying ideological functions of power relations and social struggles in written and visual contents were discussed with the Dominance Approach (Spender, 1980) to language. The information was gathered through document analysis of the written and visual contents. The data were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative techniques by two raters. The findings showed that throughout the twenty-four years, gender bias towards women decreased, and more equal representation was seen for both genders. The results were discussed along with recommendations for educators, curriculum developers, and policymakers.