GENDER REPRESENTATION IN HIGHER SECONDARY ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS OF KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA AND FBISE

Abstract

Curriculum plays a foundational role in shaping opinions, beliefs, and worldviews given its grounding in sociocultural ideologies. Therefore, gender representation in school curricula has been the subject of research across the world since the 1970s. Although a handful of studies have been conducted in Pakistan, they have consistently reconfirmed deep-seated gender bias in textbooks despite governmental pledge to gender equality in education through administrative and financial investment over the past few decades. While previous studies have focused on primary- and secondarylevel textbooks from individual provinces, the current study reviews most recent higher-secondary English textbooks taught in schools and colleges affiliated with 8 KP boards as well as FBISE hence their impact on a large number of young men and women about to embark on professional journeys. Broadly informed by the theory of Anti-Oppressive Education (Kumashiro, 2000), this qualitative research has used directed content analysis to explore gender representation in the selected textbooks to conclude that despite governmental commitment to empower women through education, these Grade XI and XII textbooks launched in 2020 and 2021 respectively, fail to eliminate gender inequality from the curriculum. The article concludes by providing recommendations for systematic elimination of gender bias from the curriculum.