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Title A STUDY OF GENDER REPRESENTATION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING TEXTBOOKS: A MULTIMODAL PERSPECTIVE

Author(s) SABEEHA HASTAM

Abstract Gender equality is a key to development for any country. Nonetheless, Pakistan, according to the Global Gender Gap Index, currently ranks the second lowest country in the world for gender equality (2021). Although efforts are apparent within Pakistan’s Vision 2025 to promote gender equality, there is still much more to be done to improve the realities for women and girls across the country. Textbooks are a powerful tool for transmission and transformation of culture of a given society (Ullah, Ali & Naz, 2014). The content of textbooks is designed in a manner which communicates a certain type of message to the readers. Thus, it can be said that the images of gender portrayed in textbooks influence child’s understanding regarding gender. A textbook should be learner-centered and nurture the minds of young people, without strengthening stereotypes and gender biases. This research study focuses on the analysis of gender representation in Primary Level ELT textbooks taught in government schools of KP. Multimodal analysis is used as a tool to study the representation of gender in primary level ELT textbooks taught in government schools of KP. The verbal mode is analyzed with the help of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (1994) whereas the visual mode is analyzed with the help of Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar Theory (1996). The study reveals that there is a high level of gender unfairness in ELT textbooks taught in government primary schools of KP. It is observed that ELT books include images and texts which promote male controlling family system. Significant outcomes of this study also show that women representation in sports activities and non-traditional professions for example, pilot or space scientists is very less. It is concluded that there is a need for fair gender representation in ELT books which can increase students’ motivation level towards the recognition of the roles that women can play as productive members of society. It is further recommended to increase the representation of women in primary level ELT books taught in government schools of KP. Moreover, it is suggested to improve female representation in main roles, pictures and professional positions. There is a significant need that ELT books taught at Primary Level in government schools in KP should portray the balanced picture of gender.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

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Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2021-12-07

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