Representations In Textbooks Research Articles

Gender stereotypes in the physical education textbook

Gender stereotypes in media, including books, can play an important role in the process of gender identity construction. The purpose of this study is to analyze gender representation in Elementary School Physical Education, Sports and Health textbooks. The analysis was conducted by tabulating images and looking at the appearance of gender characters in the text in the elementary physical education books from grade one to grade six. Visibility and Firstness refer to the number of times a male or female character appears first in an exercise. Gender stereotypes (such as female characters doing rope games, male characters playing big ball games) were counted. Based on this data, it can be seen that in classes 1,2,4,5 and 6 there are more male images than female, only in class 3 there are more female images than male. Furthermore, the results of Gender Stereotyping data show that males are more dominant in Floor Gymnastics, Water Sports, Physical Fitness Activities, Invasion Games, Net Games, Maintenance of Reproductive Hygiene, Pencak Silat Martial Arts, and Athletics. In contrast gymnastics materials and Rhythmic Gymnastics Activities are dominated by women. Such stereotypes are considered as one of the ways in which gender identity is influenced and constructed. They can limit individuals' choices in relation to their roles, interests and aspirations, as individuals tend to conform to what is perceived as the gender norm in society.

Representation of Cultures in Local Italian Language Textbooks for Chinese Universities: A Diachronic Content Analysis

ABSTRACT This study explores the evolving landscape of cultural representations within locally produced Italian as a foreign language (IFL) textbooks in the Chinese educational context. Employing a diachronic content analysis, three distinct textbooks spanning different chronological periods (1972, 1991, 2022) were scrutinised to discern the nuanced evolution of cultural representations. Findings reveal a notable transformation in emphasis, shifting from an initial spotlight on source culture towards an increasing prominence of target culture across successive textbooks. What is more, a consistent emphasis on cultural products, cultural practices, and cultural persons (this latter following Moran, 2009), with an emergence of cultural perspectives in the latest textbook, aligns with an evolving understanding of culture in the domain of foreign language teaching. The observed dynamics, evident through both explicit and implicit representations, underscore the multifaceted relationship between educational priorities, socio-historical contexts, and cultural representations in language textbooks.

Gender Representation in English Language Textbooks of Primary Education

Textbooks are carriers of social change. It is through textbooks and classroom experiences that from the stage of childhood in the school itself, students start learning to accept gender socialization, social norms, beliefs, gender roles, inequality, and bias. Hence, the need to make the textbooks gender neutral arises becausetheir analysis is necessary for this; it is in this light that the present study has analyzed English textbooks at the primary level of education in India toexaminethe incubation of gender stereotypes and bias. These were coupled with content analysis and qualitative and documentary research. The major findings reflect that gender patriarchy and bias are reflected in English textbooks.Overall, the results indicated that males were more prominently featured in textbooks, both in images and in text. Females were still underrepresented, had fewer diverse occupations, and were often depicted doing household chores in three textbooks. However, there were some positive portrayals and efforts to challenge stereotypes, with examples of gender-neutral language and activities shared by both genders.The findings of this study can also be used to shape policies at the state or national level in creating and applying guidelines for gender-neutral content in educational materials. These guidelines would guide the efforts of a textbook development agency,writers, and teachers in creating gender-sensitive curricula and textbooks.

Teaching protein structure and function through molecular visualization.

The function of proteins is governed by their three-dimensional structure. This structure is determined by the chemical characteristics and atomic interactions of amino acids. Students of biochemistry, with a particular focus on protein chemistry, benefit from looking at protein structures and understanding how proteins are built and fold. Due to their three-dimensional nature, static two-dimensional representations in textbooks can be limiting to student learning. Here, we developed a series of tutorials that introduce students to molecular graphics software. The students are challenged to apply the software to look at proteins and to get a deeper understanding of how amino acid properties are linked to structure. We also familiarize students with some of the latest tools in computational structural biology. Students performed the tutorials with visual enthusiasm and reported general satisfaction in being able to visualize theoretical concepts learned during lectures. We further stimulated student engagement by allowing space for self-exploration. We share the tutorial instructions for other teachers to build on them, and we also offer suggestions for further improvement based on student feedback. In summary, we present a series of tutorials aimed at students of an advanced course in protein biochemistry to enable them to explore the universe of protein structures and how those relate to function.

IDIOMS IN BUSINESS ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS: THE CASE OF MARKET LEADER AND BUSINESS RESULT

Idioms represent an important part of effective communication between native speakers, but they are quite necessary among non-native speakers too. Their crucial role in making communication flow easily makes them attractive and important to be studied. Their use in not very common among non-native speakers, because they are usually taught at higher levels, such as C1 and above. This paper is a systematic analysis of idioms representation in Business English textbooks used in higher education, both Market Leader and Business Result. The focus is in identifying their presence in these textbooks, followed by an analysis and categorization of idiomatic expressions across various units and topics. A thorough approach of their complex nature and connection to real-world business scenarios is taken in order to see the efficacy of their inclusion in the textbooks. The paper contains extractions, which show how these expressions are introduced to students in these two textbooks, and if they are equivalent to the requirements in the Common European Framework of Languages. This research’s objective is to help teachers, educators and curriculum see how idiomatic language is treated in Business English textbooks. Also, the study adds a contribution of raising awareness of the role idioms play in language acquisition and the implications for effective business communication.

Impact of Gender Representation in Textbooks on Student Achievement in United Kingdom

Purpose: The aim of the study was to analyze the impact of gender representation in textbooks on student achievement in United Kingdom. Methodology: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries. Findings: The study revealed that balanced gender representation positively influences student outcomes. Research indicates that textbooks featuring diverse gender roles and equitable portrayals help combat gender stereotypes and promote higher engagement and achievement among students. Specifically, when textbooks include a variety of roles and achievements for different genders, students of all genders benefit from improved self-efficacy and academic performance. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Social learning theory, expectancy-value theory & critical pedagogy theory may be used to anchor future studies on gender representation in textbooks on student achievement in United Kingdom. Educators and curriculum developers should ensure that textbooks and other educational materials represent genders equitably and inclusively. Education policymakers should establish and enforce regulatory standards that mandate gender balance and inclusivity in textbooks.

Inclusive education in the language classroom: an investigation into the portrait of gender in language textbooks

ABSTRACT This research aims to investigate gender representation in China’s most popular English language textbooks used in secondary schools. The study examines potential gender biases and stereotypes presented in the materials and investigates their impact on students’ gender identity formation, particularly how they affect female under-representation or sexism in the classroom. To accomplish this, we conducted content analysis of the top ten versions of English language textbooks used in Chinese secondary schools. Our analysis focused on various aspects such as titles, family relationships, physical surroundings, appearance, professions, social engagements, and order of mention. We created a Textbook Gender Bias Index (TGBI) to assess the presence and severity of gender bias in these areas. Our findings reveal that potential gender bias in textbooks correlates significantly with the economic status of the area using that version. Based on our results, we recommend ensuring fair gender representation in educational materials and instructional approaches to prevent biassed gender portrayal, which is crucial for promoting inclusive education in the language classroom. This study provides valuable insights into how gender representation in language textbooks can influence gender identity formation and offers practical recommendations for educators and textbook publishers to make language learning more inclusive.

Gender representation in English language textbooks in Bangladesh

Gender representation in English language textbooks in Bangladesh

When Nature of Science Meets Quantum Physics: Insights from NOS Representation in Chinese Physics Textbooks

When Nature of Science Meets Quantum Physics: Insights from NOS Representation in Chinese Physics Textbooks

The hidden lessons in textbooks: Gender representation and stereotypes in European mathematics and language books

AbstractThis cross‐national European comparison examined gender representation and stereotypes in mathematics and language textbooks from Germany, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Romania. The results showed that female characters were numerically underrepresented. Female characters were also less often a main character or individually portrayed compared to male characters, but not proportionally to the overall lower number of female characters. Characters in occupational roles were less often female than male, whereas among characters with gender non‐conform characteristics, these were more often female than male in some textbooks. There was no sexual diversity among characters. The differences in gender representation are found within each country, but gender differences were smaller in more gender‐egalitarian countries. If textbooks are to offer the same learning benefits to both boys and girls, students should be equally represented in a diversity of roles and occupations.

Male bias in science and ways to counter it: gender imbalance of images in a science textbook in Irish secondary education

There has been a steady decline of student take-up of physics as a Leaving Certificate subject, from 19% in 1991 to 13.6% in 2021. This comes in the backdrop of a projected increase in the international demand for STEM workers, which makes STEM education the bedrock for securing Ireland’s economic future. The gender bias in science textbooks is well documented and enduring. The lack of female representation in science textbooks’ images is exacerbated by the scarcity of female figures that would be broadly accepted as role models. This paper examines the gender balance of a science textbook used widely in the Irish junior cycle. For this purpose, the Gender Bias 14 Tool was chosen as the data collection instrument, which was developed by Parkin and Mackenzie. A clear majority of the 38 chapters of the book contain more images/illustrations with male than female figures, more images/illustrations that improve the image of men and more images/illustrations of male role models. Potential interventions are outlined including working closely with publishers to include more women in the textbook’s images, especially important and influential female figures, and working with teachers to help them enhance teaching with supplementary material that include more female representation through images.

A VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF GENDER IN INDONESIAN EFL TEXTBOOKS

Gender inequality remains a prevalent issue in countries such as Indonesia in many communication and social media. One such medium is EFL textbooks. This qualitative study aimed to investigate how visual gender representation in EFL textbooks and describe social factors contributing to the patterns of the representation. The data for this study were human images in three EFL textbooks for senior high school students in Indonesia published by the Ministry of the Republic of Indonesia. Coding and classifying were the methods of data collection. Three dimensions of discourse—description, interpretation, and explanation—were used as the framework for the data analysis. The current study reveals that females and males are visually represented symmetrically, yet the stereotyping of males and females remains prevalent. Women’s movement might be the backgrounding of the depiction of the two genders in a symmetrical position. However, subtle conventional gender stereotypes are also portrayed in this study.

Gender Representation in Education: Evidence from English National Tests in Indonesia

Gender representation in Indonesian school textbooks has been widely analysed. However, the compulsory national tests have lacked attention although these used to be a main tool to determine students’ competencies. This research aims to evaluate gender representation in the Indonesian Education System, especially in the national tests. Using content analysis, we examined both male and female representation in the Junior High School English national tests from 1994 to 2004. The findings reveal that the English national tests were content-valid tests. Before 1998, the tests reflected the patriarchal culture embraced by Indonesians during the New Order era. For example, female names were associated with feminine traits and the domestic sphere, while male names were associated with masculine traits and the public sphere. Meanwhile, the tests after 1998 indicated how female names were given more opportunities in the public sphere although male names still dominated the discussion on employment. This result is in line with the theoretical and practical implications, in which gender roles are represented based on the culture of the society.

Representation of Women in the 2018 and 2024 Social Studies Curricula and Textbooks

This study examines the representation of male and female figures in the 2018 and 2024 Social Studies Curricula and the social studies textbooks used in the 2023-2024 academic year. Employing document analysis as a qualitative research method, the findings indicate that women's contributions in science, art, politics, and other domains are insufficiently represented, while male figures predominate numerically. This underrepresentation of female figures hinders female students' ability to find role models and results in an incomplete understanding of history. The study highlights the importance of more balanced gender representation in curricula and textbooks and suggests considering adjustments to address this disparity.

Vector representations and unit vector representations of fields: Problems of understanding and possible teaching strategies

Vector fields are a highly abstract physical concept that is often taught using visualizations. Although vector representations are particularly suitable for visualizing quantitative data, they are often confusing, especially when describing real fields such as magnetic and electric fields, as the vector arrows can overlap. The present study investigates vector understanding at the end of secondary education. In particular, the extent to which the geometry of the field can be derived from conventional unit vector representations and representations with centered unit vectors was examined. To support this understanding, two exercises were compared. The unirepresentational exercise argued within the conventional unit vector representation, while the multirepresentational exercise attempted to support the link between centered and conventional unit vectors. The results show that almost all test subjects solved the items for generating vector representations correctly, but significant difficulties were encountered in interpreting vector representations. Drawing and interpreting vector representations therefore appear to be different skills that should be practiced intensively and in an integrated way. Various problems could be identified when interpreting vector representations. For example, the number of vectors is often erroneously used to estimate the strength of the field, although more vectors per surface element actually only increase the resolution of the representation. Here, however, the results suggest that the longitudinal density and the transverse density of the drawn vectors are perceived differently by the learners. Furthermore, the learners recognized the field’s geometry much more readily from centered unit vectors than from conventional unit vectors. Errors occur especially when interpreting the geometry of conventional unit vector representations of rotational fields and fields containing both sources and sinks while the geometries of fields containing only sinks were interpreted quite well. The comparison between the two training exercises showed that a promising approach to deepen students’ understanding would be to use an exercise that contrasts conventional and centered unit vector representations and explains how to translate from one representation to the other, rather than describing the main elements of only a single representation. Finally, based on the results of the study, we propose a strategy for teaching vector representations in schools. Given the significantly improved readability of the representation with centered unit vectors, the results even raise the question of whether this type of representation could possibly replace the conventional representation in textbooks and learning materials in the future. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Tales of (Under)Representation: Afro-Latinx in Spanish as a Heritage Language Textbooks

Abstract: The present study examines the lack of representation of minority communities in the existing literature by examining the representation of Afro-Latinxs in texts and visuals in seven Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL) textbooks, and the ideologies behind these representations. Drawing upon Norman Fairclough's (1995) model for conducting Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen's (2001, 2006) grammar of visual design, this current study analyzes text (readings, descriptions, labels, among others) and visuals (people, pictures, buildings, artifacts, among others) in these textbooks. The findings suggest that Afro-Latinx are hardly represented in SHL textbooks. There were only 38 textual representations in the seven SHL textbooks examined and only 18 images clearly referencing Afro-Latinx. This underrepresentation is in line with the ideology of erasure. In addition, ideologies of collectivization and tourism discourse were found throughout the textbooks analyzed. The present study's findings confirm the invisibility of Afro-Latinx in educational discourse and emphasizes the need to examine representations in Spanish language textbooks and teaching materials.

Demystifying the cultural representations in international high school English textbooks: a social-semiotic approach and teachers’ views

ABSTRACT Albeit cultural content in English textbooks have been much reported, little empirical evidence addresses global or international-distributed English textbooks. To fill this void, the present qualitative content analysis study aims to explore the representation of cultural content in international English textbooks used for Indonesian senior high school students. For another contribution, we also attempt to gain English teachers’ perceptions of cultural content in the textbooks examined through written interviews. Grounded in a social semiotic approach, the findings showcased that the textbooks’ content represents inner-circle countries in the aspect of perspectives, products, persons, and practices. Further, the imbalance in the cultural representation of the outer circle and expanding circle countries indicated that the authors do not sufficiently increase the global cultural awareness of English language learners because other cultural perspectives on varieties of English are not included. The interviews analysis revealed that the cultural contents were short and required improvement.

Students and Teachers Perception About Gender Equality and Human Rights in English Textbook (Pakistan)

Although earlier research highlighted the gender representations in ELT textbooks, it did not address how students and teachers view gender equality and the representation of human rights. This study, therefore, is designed to understand English language students' and teachers' perceptions about the inclusion of themes of gender equality and human rights in the English textbook of the 10th grade of the Punjab textbook board. Students' views were probed by means of a survey, and an interview was used to collect data from teachers. The findings revealed that a significant majority of the students believe that topics related to the role of women and the rights and responsibilities of citizens should be included in English textbooks. They also recommended to include topics related to gender equality and human rights in the textbooks. Some of the students agreed that topics related to famous women and male leaders, showing different familial relations of men and women, and both performing outdoor tasks are present in English in the main content, activities, and in the form of images. However, they were either unable to provide any names of the units containing these topics or provided the names of the units from the 9th-grade textbook. Similarly, most of the teachers mentioned that representation of women is limited in the English textbook of 9th grade and the presence of women and their social roles are completely ignored in the 10th-grade textbook. Teachers argued that it is essential to talk about the role of women in the textbook to encourage women's participation, acknowledge their achievements, and promote equality and respect towards women.

Women in Saudi secondary school EFL textbooks: a critical study of women's empowerment as enshrined in the Saudi Vision 2030.

Since the launch of the Saudi Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has undergone significant economic and social reforms in order to move away from the country's reliance on oil and toward a more diverse and sustainable economy. One of the important chapters in this endeavour is the empowerment of Saudi women whereby they are to be given opportunities equal to men. Against this new paradigm, this study investigates whether Vision 2030's transformative efforts surrounding women's empowerment are reflected in the country's EFL textbooks, or whether the traditional representation of Saudi women has remained unchanged. The analytical focal point is the pictorial representation of Saudi women in six textbooks which form part of the Mega Goal series, and which are used to teach English in Saudi secondary schools. The analysis examined the representations of females from three different angles: the percentage of appearances in the textbooks from the total human pictorials; the social roles and occupations depicted, and the activities that they are engaged in. Analysis along all three of these angles revealed that there is a remarkable imbalance between the depiction of men and women in these textbooks, in favour of men. The study concludes that the Mega Goal series' EFL textbooks fall short of providing a realistic representation of Saudi women and fails to include representative depictions of women who, like their male counterparts, have occupied senior roles and prestigious positions in the country. This conclusion points to the need to include such representation in EFL textbooks, so that the role of women as envisaged in Saudi's Vision 2030 complies with the Vision's determination to provide equal opportunities for both men and women.

Lesion-conditioning of synthetic MRI-derived subtraction-MIPs of the breast using a latent diffusion model

The purpose of this feasibility study is to investigate if latent diffusion models (LDMs) are capable to generate contrast enhanced (CE) MRI-derived subtraction maximum intensity projections (MIPs) of the breast, which are conditioned by lesions. We trained an LDM with n = 2832 CE-MIPs of breast MRI examinations of n = 1966 patients (median age: 50 years) acquired between the years 2015 and 2020. The LDM was subsequently conditioned with n = 756 segmented lesions from n = 407 examinations, indicating their location and BI-RADS scores. By applying the LDM, synthetic images were generated from the segmentations of an independent validation dataset. Lesions, anatomical correctness, and realistic impression of synthetic and real MIP images were further assessed in a multi-rater study with five independent raters, each evaluating n = 204 MIPs (50% real/50% synthetic images). The detection of synthetic MIPs by the raters was akin to random guessing with an AUC of 0.58. Interrater reliability of the lesion assessment was high both for real (Kendall’s W = 0.77) and synthetic images (W = 0.85). A higher AUC was observed for the detection of suspicious lesions (BI-RADS ≥\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\ge $$\\end{document} 4) in synthetic MIPs (0.88 vs. 0.77; p = 0.051). Our results show that LDMs can generate lesion-conditioned MRI-derived CE subtraction MIPs of the breast, however, they also indicate that the LDM tended to generate rather typical or ‘textbook representations’ of lesions.