Gender Bias In English Language Teaching Textbooks

Gender bias in foreign language teaching textbooks is one of the major research targets in the field of foreign language teaching. However, it remains a less explored area in china. Since foreign language teaching textbooks carry not only language knowledge but also social, political and moral values, which have subtle influence on learners, it is worthwhile to examine whether there is gender bias embedded in language textbooks. Therefore,the study attempts to make a systematic, quantitative research into the nature and extent of gender bias in six ELT textbooks currently used in universities in mainland China.This research incorporates content analysis and linguistic analysis to examine the representation of males and females in these ELT textbooks. Content analysis is conducted in the part of texts and the part of exercises separately. Linguistic analysis is performed at two levels, that is, word level and clause level. Specifically, the following aspects are addressed: (1) number and importance of females and males in the textbooks;(2) the number and types of occupations assigned to females and males in the textbooks;(3) the gender bias embedded in the use of language in the textbooks.The results show that gender bias is prevalent in the six textbooks examined, and that females are prejudiced against mainly. Gender bias in the six textbooks can be summarized into four dimensions: invisibility, stereotype, linguistic bias, male social prominence. Females are extremely underrepresented both as human beings and as paid workers and there is no outstanding female in the texts of the six textbooks, whereas males appear far more frequently than females and there are as much as 32 outstanding males appearing in the texts. In the few cases when occupational roles are given to females, they typically fall into the "teaching", "helping" and "entertaining" categories, such as teacher, nurse and actress. In contrast, the occupational roles ascribed to males are many, and they reflect a much larger spectrum of occupational roles, with a high concentration at professions of high rank which carry authority and prestige. It is also found that texts are more gender biased than exercises through the comparison of the results of content analysis in texts and content analysis in exercises. In addition, females' social roles are restricted within domestic sphere. Linguistic bias is discussed in threeaspects: first-place occurrence, addressing, masculine generic constructions. The theme/rheme analysis shows that males enjoy social prominence.The findings call for immediate attention to gender representation in ELT textbooks. It is suggested that guidelines for eliminating gender bias and other forms of discrimination from textbooks be issued and that teachers use gender biased textbooks flexibly to counteract the negative effects of gender biased textbooks. The thesis concludes with further directions of research.