Gender bias in Kurdish and English text books in grade seven

Abstract EN

Textbooks are the best instruments by which we can shape people’s beliefs.

They play a great role in preparing students to the society.

It is agreed that though textbooks are sources of information, they are image- forming.

Through textbooks, children can understand what the role of males and females is.

In other words, textbooks can be regarded to send images to children.

In textbooks, gender identity is reflected via nouns, pronouns, gender-linked occupations, etc.

Gender bias is regarded as discrimination between people depending on their sex.

This study aims to investigate gender bias in two textbooks: Sunrise Seven (henceforth S7) and Kurdish Language and Literature for Grade Seven (henceforth KLL7)) that are taught in grade seven in Iraqi Kurdistan Schools.

The first one was designed and published by Macmillan; the second one was locally designed and published by Ministry of Education.

Many researchers have dealt with this topic in all levels of education all over the world.

To the best of the researchers’ knowledge no (or little) research has been conducted in this field to investigate Kurdistan Region textbooks, this may be due to the social perspectives.

The procedures followed in this study are textual analysis and visual analysis.

Each textbook has been investigated deeply twice.

The two textbooks have been scanned for proper nouns, pronouns, gender-linked nouns, occupations and visuals.

The frequency of occurrence and the frequency of firstness have been concentrated on.

It has been concluded that the two textbooks are different in gender representation.

The analysis of findings shows that male and female have been dealt with almost equally in S7.

The study criticizes KLL7 for the persistence of gender bias in favor of males.

The researchers do not imagine that KLL7 writers, authors and publishers having an agenda to publish books within an inherent gender.

Yet, they should have taken gender equality into their consideration while writing the textbook.

The study has some recommendations and pedagogical implications for syllabus designers, textbook writers and teachers.