The Gender Portrayal in English Textbooks for Junior High School Students in Indonesia: Is it Equal?

Abstract

Gender equity is vital for the realization of human rights in society. Gender should be portrayed with careful attention in all forms of information and communication media, including textbooks, to avoid gender stereotypes or the superiority of one gender over the other. Textbooks can be the most effective media for promoting and raising awareness of gender equality. Therefore, this research was to investigate gender portrayal in English textbooks for Junior High School students in Indonesia. The pattern of this research was content analysis research. Three series of English textbooks with characters and images as the research data were scrutinized by identifying, classifying, and coding into a male and female division. The results showed that the representation of males and females was equal in quantitative data but not in qualitative analysis. These imply that textbook developers and publishers must provide equal representation for both genders in their future textbooks. Also, educators should have materials selection, evaluation, and adaptation in teaching to promote gender equality awareness among their students.