The Sexist Occupational Representation in English Textbooks of Iranian High schools

  • Masoumeh Bahman University of Malaya
Keywords: Gender, occupational roles, sexism, stereotypical occupations

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the occupational roles assigned to women and men in three volumes of English textbooks of Iranian high schools (Birjandi, Soheili, Nowruzi, & Mahmoodi, 2006) using Hartman and Judd’s (1978) framework. The results of the inferential and descriptive analyses demonstrated that these textbooks were 99% sexist in regards to occupational roles as men were depicted in high-status jobs, but women were represented in low-status jobs. In addition, men were manifested in a greater range of occupations than women.

                                                                                                                                       

                                 

                    

 

References

Ahour, T., & Zaferani, P. (2016). A critical visual analysis of gender representation of ELT materials from a multimodal perspective. The Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(18), 78-98.

Amini, M., & Birjandi, P. (2012). Gender bias in the Iranian high school EFL textbooks. English Language Teaching, 5(2), 134-147.

https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v5n2p134

Bahman, M. (2008). Gender representation in EFL materials: An analysis of English textbooks of Iranian high schools (Unpublished master's thesis). Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.

Bahman, M., & Rahimi, A. (2010). Gender representation in EFL materials: An analysis of English textbooks of Iranian high schools. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9, 273-277.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.12.149

Birjandi, P., Soheili, A., Nowruzi, M., & Mahmoodi, G. H. (2006) English book (Vols. 1, 2 & 3). Tehran: Printing and Publishing Company of Iran Textbooks.

Cocoradă, E. (2018). Gender stereotypes in school textbooks. Revista Romaneasca Pentru Educatie Multidimensionala, 10(4), 65-81. https://doi.org/10.18662/rrem/73

https://doi.org/10.18662/rrem/73

Emilia, E., Moecharam, N. Y., & Syifa, I. L. (2017). Gender in EFL classroom: Transitivity analysis in English textbooks for Indonesian students. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1), 206-214.

https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v7i1.6877

Farooq, M. U. (1999). Examining sexism in an EFL textbook. Retrieved from http://www.cels.bham.ac.uk/resources/essays/farooq6.pdf

Ghajarieh, A., & Salimi, A. (2016). Gendered representations of male and female social actors in Iranian educational materials. Gender Issues, 33, 258-270.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-016-9157-6

Hall, M. (2014). Gender representation in current EFL textbooks in Iranian secondary schools. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 5(2), 253-261.

https://doi.org/10.4304/jltr.5.2.253-261

Hamid, B. A., Yuen, C. K., Othman, Z., Yasin, M. S. M., & Baharuddin, J. H. (2013). A corpus-based investigation of gender stereotyping and linguistic sexism in Qatari primary school science textbooks. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 21(S), 197-218.

Harashima, H. D. (2005). Sexual bias in an EFL textbook: A case study. In K. Bradford-Watts, C. Ikeguchi & M. Swanson (Eds.), JALT 2004 Conference proceedings (pp. 1005-1011). Tokyo: JALT.

Hartman, P. L., & Judd, E. L. (1978). Sexism and TESOL materials. TESOL Quarterly, 12(4), 383-393.

https://doi.org/10.2307/3586137

Hellinger, M. (1980). For men must work, and women must weep: Sexism in English language textbooks used in German schools. In C. Kramerae (Ed.), The voices and words of women and men (pp. 267-274). New York: Pergamon Press.

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0148-0685(80)92323-4

Hellinger, M., & Bubmann, H. (2002). Gender across languages: The linguistic representation of women and men. In M. Hellinger & H. Bubmann (Eds.), Gender across languages: The linguistic representation of women and men (pp. 2-25). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.10

Higgins, P. J., & Shoar-Ghaffari, P. (1991). Sex-role socialization in Iranian textbooks. NWSA Journal, 3(2), 213-232.

Kobia, J. M. (2009). Femininity and masculinity in English primary school textbooks in Kenya. The International Journal of Language Society and Culture. Retrieved from http://www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/JOURNAL/28-6.pdf

Lakoff, R. (1973). Language and women's place. New York: Harper and Row.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500000051

Lee, J. F. K. (2014). A hidden curriculum in Japanese EFL textbooks: Gender representation. Linguistics and Education, 27, 39-53.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2014.07.002

Mills, S. (1995). Feminist stylistic. London: Routledge.

Mir‐Hosseini, Z. (2006). Muslim women's quest for equality: Between Islamic law and feminism. Critical Inquiry, 32(4), 587-601.

https://doi.org/10.1086/508085

Otlowski, M. (2003). Ethnic diversity and gender bias in EFL textbooks. Asian EFL Journal, 5(2), 1-9. Retrieved from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/june_03_mo.p

Pauwels, A. (1998). Women changing language. London: Longman.

Porreca, K. L. (1984). Sexism in current ESL textbooks. TESOL Quarterly, 18(4), 705-724.

https://doi.org/10.2307/3586584

Roohani, A., & Zarei, M. (2013). Evaluating gender-bias in the Iranian preuniversity English textbooks. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(1), 115-125.

https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v3i1.194

Sakita, T. I. (1995). Sexism in Japanese English education: A survey of EFL texts. Woman and Language, 18, 5-12.

Salami, A., & Ghajarieh, A. (2016). Culture and gender representation in Iranian school textbooks. Sexuality & Culture, 20, 69-84. doi: 10.1007/s12119-015-9310-5

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-015-9310-5

Sunderland, J. (2006). Language and gender. London: Routledge.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203456491

Thorne, B., & Henley, N. (1975). An overview of language, gender, and society. In B. Thorne & N. Henley (Eds.), Language and sex: Difference & dominance (pp. 5-42). Rowley: Newbury.

Thorne, B., Kramarae, C., & Henley, N. (1983). Language, gender and society: Opening a second decade of research. In B. Thorne, C. Kramarae & N. Henley (Eds.), Language, gender and society (pp. 7- 24). Rowley: Newbury.

Vahdatinejad, S., & Hamid, B. A. (2017). Linguistic sexism in the Iranian EFL junior high school textbooks. Journal of Advance Research in Social Science and Humanities (JIAATS), 3(2), 1-19.

https://doi.org/10.20319/pijss.2017.32.746761

Weiss, R. P. (2001). Gender biased learning. Training & Development, 55(1), 42-48.

Published
2020-12-03
How to Cite
Bahman, M. (2020). The Sexist Occupational Representation in English Textbooks of Iranian High schools. Issues in Language Studies, 9(2), 138-147. https://doi.org/10.33736/ils.2431.2020