From Dutiful Wife and Good Mother to Professional Woman?

Abstract

Either as a medium for transmitting social culture or as a culture in themselves, teaching materials play a decisive role in the socialization process of children. They not only pass on knowledge to children but also communicate a society's standards and have a normative and binding effect. The gender norms of a given society are similarly manifested in teaching materials, which thereby maintain the established balance between genders in that society. Gender studies of current teaching materials are in agreement that problems of "gender bias" and "gender discrimination" exist in teaching materials and "the teaching material culture bred in the social culture" further expands such bias, with the result that gender bias in society is reproduced, enhanced, and rationalized.1