The gender representation of women and men in the occupational areas of STEM and care work in German textbooks

Abstract

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations and care work occupations are highly segregated by gender. School textbooks play an essential socializing role in determining which occupations are perceived as typically male or female. Existing research on the gender representation of STEM and care work occupations in textbooks is limited in scope. Therefore, we used quantitative text analyses in a large sample of 202 current German textbooks to examine the gender representation of STEM and care work occupations. We used collocation analysis to explore the nature of the occupational representations, focusing on agency and communion. Men were portrayed significantly more frequently than women in STEM and care work occupations. Adjectives of agency and communion occurred rarely in the collocations. Further research is required to test our findings in other cultures and to take a more differentiated look into the use of agency and communion in textbooks.