Gender representations in primary school textbooks: A quantitative content analysis

In this study the content of the textbooks, the most important tool of the education system, which is under the control of the state institutions, is analyzed in terms of gender. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the textbooks children coming across in the first period of their educational life and to determine the frequency of the characters found in the texts and illustrations in these textbooks in terms of age and sex; the actions of these characters; places occupied by these characters; how these characters are identified; the jobs they profess; the distribution of the well-known personalities according to their sexes and also to determine whether the texts contain discriminatory phrases and stereotypes about gender. In this study, the primary school Life Sciences and Turkish textbooks which are uploaded on http://www.eba.gov.tr/ekitap to be instructed in the 2017-2018 academic year are analyzed. The data gathered through a questionnaire created by the quantitative method are carried out by means of the content analysis. Besides, texts are qualitatively analyzed further to see whether there are discriminatory phrases and messages related to gender stereotypes. The data are presented by tables (frequency, percentage); and two-tailed X2 test is used in order to compare the variables statistically.