Yükseköğretimde kullanılan İngilizce ders kitaplarındaki cinsiyetçilik üzerine bir analiz

Gender identity is constructed by means of social interactions and modeling provided by the agents of primary socialization including family and education. As one of the primary materials of education, coursebooks have a significant influence in this process of construction and continuous reproduction of learners' self-perceptions and attitudes towards gender. To this end, it is of utmost importance not to bolster stereotypical views of gender through instructional materials that ought to serve the purpose of introducing learners' knowledge in an unbiased, impartial manner. In this sense, this study set out to investigate the gender representations in two sets of English language coursebooks published by different publishing houses and are used in tertiary level English education. The written content of the books was analyzed by using qualitative content analysis to make standardized interpretations of the textual data. In order to determine whether there are balanced and fair representations of gender or if biased views of gender are manifested, the coursebooks were analyzed thoroughly in terms of the attributions of occupations, adjectives, sports, crime and household activities/ responsibilities. The results have revealed that in both sets, females are frequently underrepresented and when they are, the roles that they are featured in are carrying strong traces of gender stereotypes and sexism with only a few exceptions overall. Stereotyped attributions of femininity and masculinity were also preserved in terms of portrayals of female and male characters. Therefore, the results of this study suggest the urgent necessity for a meticulous review of the contents of the coursebooks that are supposedly free of any discrimination, including gender.