Learner perceptions of gender representation in EFL grammar books

• Authors: Marcin Lewandowski
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

It seems that there are very few research themes in sociolinguistics that have been as thoroughly explored as gender representation in educational materials (notably in E FL textbooks). However, relatively little attention has been paid to how learners themselves perceive the images of men and women in teaching resources. T he present contribution has been written in an attempt to fill this gap. Drawing on the findings of two small-scale survey studies conducted among Polish university students, it addresses two major issues. T he first one concerns the extent to which the choice of male or female-gendered sentence subjects in E FL grammar course books matches the learners’ associations and expectations. The other one, focusing specifically on attitudes to gender representation, seeks to demonstrate how the students view the ways male and female characters are portrayed in constructed examples of usage and practice sentences from English grammar textbooks. Both studies provide some indications of how E FL learners’ needs and expectations can be better addressed in teaching materials

Keywords

EN

language and gender; sexism; sexist language; gender stereotyping; gender representation in textbooks; EFL grammar books

• Publisher: Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk
• Journal: Lingua Posnaniensis
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 56
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 61-72

Dates

published

2014-12-01

online

2015-07-24

Contributors

author

Marcin Lewandowski

• Marcin Lewandowski Institute of Linguistics, Adam Mickiewicz University al. Niepodległości 4, 61-874 Poznań

References

• Amalsaleh, E hya & J avid, Fatemeh & Rahimi, A li. 2010. T he power of language and ELT textbooks. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 9. 2052-2056.
• Cincotta, Madeleine Strong. 1978. T extbooks and their influence on sex-role stereotype formation. Babel: Journal of the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teacher’s Association 14(3). 24-29.
• Fairclough, N orman. 1993. Discourse and social change. Cambridge: P olity P ress.
• Harashima, H ideto D. 2005. Sexual bias in an E FL textbook: A case study. In Bradford-Watts, K im & Ikeguchi, Cecilia & Swanson, Malcolm (eds.), JALT2004 Conference Proceedings, 1005-1011. T okyo: JAL .
• Hartman, P at L . & J udd, E lliot L . 1978. Sexism and TE SOL Materials. TESOL Quarterly 12(4). 383-393.
• Jones, Martha A . & K itetu, Catherine & Sunderland, J ane (1997). Discourse roles, gender and language textbook dialogues: W ho learns what from J ohn and Sally? Gender and Education 9(4). 469-490.
• Kızılaslan, Irem. 2010. Student teachers’ perceptions of gendered texts in E nglish language textbooks. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 2. 3528-3531.
• Lewandowski, Marcin. 2014. G ender stereotyping in E FL grammar textbooks. A diachronic approach. Linguistik Online 68(6). 83-99.
• Linguistic Society of A merica.1996. LSA Bulletin. December.
• Macaulay, Monica & Brice, Colleen. 1997. Don’t touch my projectile: G ender bias and stereotyping in syntactic examples. Language 73(4). 798-825.
• Motschenbacher, H eiko. 2012. An interdisciplinary bibliography on language, gender and sexuality (2000-2011). Amsterdam: J ohn Benjamins P ublishing Company.
• Nilsen, A lleen P ace. 1977. Sexism in children’s books and elementary classroom materials. In N ilsen, A lleen P ace & Bosmajian, H aig & G ershuny, H . L ee & Stanley, J ulia P . (eds.), Sexism and language, 161-179. U rbana, Illinois: N ational Council of T eachers of E nglish.
• O’Donnell, Richard W . 1973. Sex Bias in P rimary Social Studies T extbooks. Educational Leadership 31. 137-141.
• Pawelczyk, J oanna & P akuła, Ł ukasz & Sunderland, J ane. 2014. Issues of power in relation to gender and sexuality in the E FL classroom: A n overview. Journal of Gender and Power 1. 49-66.
• Sunderland, J ane. 1992. G ender in the E FL classroom. ELT Journal 46(1). 81-90.
• Sunderland, J ane. 1994. Introduction to Quadrant II. In Sunderland, J ane (ed.), Exploring gender: Questions and implications for English language education, 55-66. N ew York: P rentice H all.
• Sunderland, J ane & Cowley, Maire & A bdul Rahim, Fauziah A bdul & L eontzakou, Christina & Shattuck, J ulie. 2000. From bias “in the text” to “teacher talk around the text”: A n exploration of teacher discourse and gendered foreign language textbook texts. Linguistics and Education 11. 251-286.
• U’Ren, Marjorie B. 1971. T he image of woman in textbooks. In G ornick, Vivian & Moran, Barbara K . (eds.), Woman in sexist society: Studies in power and powerlessness, 218-225. N ew York: Basic Books. van Dijk, T eun A . 2006. Ideology and discourse analysis. Journal of Political Ideologies 11(2). 115-140.
• Williams, J ohn E . & Best, Deborah L . 1990. Measuring Sex Stereotypes: A Multination Study. N ewbury P ark, CA: Sage P ublications.
• Yang, Chi Cheung Ruby. 2011. G ender representation in a H ong K ong primary E nglish textbook series: T he relationship between language planning and social policy. Current Issues in Language Planning 12(1). 77-88.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/linpo-2014-0014