Androcentrism in Arabic Educational Materials: A Linguistic Analysis of GCC Countries’ Selected School Textbooks

Abstract

This study seeks to investigate the existence of androcentrism in school textbooks used in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. It attempts to unveil potential implicit biases ingrained in the language of these textbooks. The data for this study is derived from a corpus comprising six textbooks, encompassing a variety of courses representing the GCC secondary level education systems. The employed methodological approach entailed content analysis, wherein categories were discerned directly from the textual data during a comprehensive examination of the textbooks. The established framework facilitated the classification of gendered linguistic references into three distinct categories: nouns, verbs, and pronouns. The principal findings highlight preferential representation of male students and, consequently, underrepresentation of female students, permeating almost the entire research corpus. Contrary to assumptions suggesting an intrinsic gender bias within the Arabic language, this investigation argues that the locus of androcentrism seems to be rooted in the authors of the scrutinized textbooks. This discernment contributes valuable insights challenging prevailing notions and accentuates the role of textbook authors in shaping linguistic biases.