“Can we stop cleaning the house and make some food, Mum?”: A critical investigation of gender representation in China's English textbooks

Abstract

This study offers a critical investigation of gender representation in China's English textbooks to examine potential gender bias. We analyzed a series of middle school English textbooks in Jiangsu Province to examine the feminine-masculine pronouns ratio, occupational/social roles and activities associated with people of different gender. Approximately balanced occurrences of feminine and masculine pronouns were identified in the corpus, suggesting rising gender-fair awareness. We further scrutinized the gender roles and activities by coding all female and male characters’ occupational/social roles and identifying associated activities thematically. We observed that gender disparity is still pervasive as females were frequently assigned with familial relationships and engaged in less physically-demanding activities, whereas males were portrayed in wider social roles and frequently depicted in sport-related activities. Thus, we suggest a critical approach both in identifying and subverting gender stereotypes in textbook design.