Sexism in language coursebooks a study on gender representations in the visuals of the primary and secondary education English coursebooks

As materials, coursebooks have a great importance. With the texts and visual elements included, they transfer cultural and social elements of the target language and/or directly or indirectly cultural values, social norms or ideological views of their authors. This is called hidden curriculum. As nothing is explicitly stated in hidden curriculum, coursebooks should be analyzed to understand the hidden or unstated values.This study aimed to find out whether there is any sexism in ELT coursebooks used in the state schools of primary and secondary education, written by Turkish authors and published by the Ministry of national Education. Data was gathered in two ways, by using two questionnaires, ?Coursebook visuals evaluation scale? and ?student?s perception of gender in occupations inventory? and by the content analysis of 11 coursebooks. Questionnaires were applied to 779 students in 15 schools, which were selected by means of opportunity sampling in four districts Çankaya, Yenimahalle, Keçiören and Altındağ. The visual contents of the coursebooks used in the visited schools were analyzed considering the criteria such as appearance of female and male characters, family roles, occupations, household activities, spare time activities, sports they do, places they were shown in, which family member the child/teenage characters are pictured with, objects/toys and games that child/teenage characters shown with.The results of the analysis revealed that coursebooks used in secondary education have more sexist viewpoint compared to primary education coursebooks in terms of the criteria stated.