Gender ideology in 6th, 7th and 8th grade coursebooks published by the Turkish Ministry of National Education

This study aims to investigate the gender ideology presented throughfemale and male representations in 6th, 7th and 8th grade coursebooks publishedby the Ministry of Education and taught in 2005-2006 Year of Education,considering that language use is a social process that ideologies aretransmitted (Fairclough, 1998).The reason for the investigation of these coursebooks is that the ages ofthe students of these grades constitute a critical period as children enteradolescence, a period which starts at the ages of 13-15 in Turkey (Gençay,n.d.). In this period, children categorize concepts of gender and undergo aprocess of gender construction (Erdoğan, n.d).Although there are many studies conducted in Western countries whichdemonstrate that gender ideologies are transmitted through language, studiesregarding this subject in Turkey has been limited.In this study, both verbal and visual data have been collected. ContentAnalysis and Discourse Analysis have been applied to the data and the resultshave been analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively.Keywords: Gender, Gender Roles, Gender Stereotyping, Discourse Analysis,Content Analysis.