Socially Responsible Teaching and English Language Coursebooks: Focus on Ethnicity, Sex, and Disability

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the reading passages and related pictures published in English language coursebooks in terms of ethnicity, sex and disability by relating them to socially responsible teaching. A checklist formerly used by Cunningsworth (1995) was adapted and used for the purposes of this study. This checklist included the headings of nationalities, whether any kind of disability is included or not, types of disability, number of males and females and gender specific roles attached to males and females. A total of 240 reading passages were analyzed throughout the study and frequencies and percentages for each coursebook were calculated. Results indicate that the coursebooks analyzed generally lack sensitivity to differences based on nationalities, sexes and disability. Results also demonstrate that disability gets little or no place in the coursebooks studied. Also, it was found that females are not represented equally with males. With regards to ethnicity, native speakers of English appear in the coursebooks more than non-native speakers do