Visual Evaluation of an ELT Textbook: Gender Bias and Instructional Purposes

Unfortunately there exists gender bias against women in today’s societies, particularly in some developing countries. While females nowadays comprise a great majority of the work force all around the world, they are assumed as the weaker sex associated with stereotypical roles as stay-at-home mothers. Such an assumption might be reflected in English language teaching (ELT) materials, affecting second/foreign language (L2) learners’ attitudes, viewpoints, and their choice of language in L2 communication. This study aims to investigate several potential areas of gender bias in the pictorial representation of women and men in Top Notch (2B) textbook, an ELT textbook taught in many English language institutions in Iran. Also, it seeks to examine the instructional purpose of the pictures in the textbook. In so doing, the pictures in the above textbook were analyzed, with a focus on gender discourse, in terms of visibility of males and females, occupation, and activities in which they were depicted. Moreover, the functions, including decoration, reiteration, representation, organization, interpretation, and transformation, that the pictures serve were examined and the frequency and percentage of each category were obtained. Content analysis of the textbook revealed that there existed no gender bias against females as regards visibility, occupations, and activities. Also, majority of the pictures (about 75%) represented at least one of instructional functions. Moreover, some of the pictures (about 24%) were used for decorative purposes. Findings suggested that Top Notch (2B), in general, was not male-oriented and gender-biased as regards visual representation of occupations, activities, and visibility. Findings would help pave the way for ELT material developers and teachers to avoid gender bias in their educational endeavor and to make the best use of visual elements in their pedagogical instructions.

کلیدواژه ها:

textbook evaluation ، gender bias ، instructional purposes