Assessment of patterns of gender representation in social studies textbooks towards assuring quality at the upper-basic schools in South-East Nigeria.

Abstract

The dangers of gender stereotypes, contained in textbooks, speak volumes, because of its influence, which if not corrected early, may condition the students, especially the females, into accepting the abnormal imbalance, as being normal and balanced. This study sets out to examine the patterns of gender representations in Social Studies textbooks towards assuring quality at the upper-basic schools in South-East Nigeria. Three research questions were answered and one hypothesis tested. The study adopted a descriptive survey design and 680 participants comprising of 600 students and 80 teachers were drawn from 40 Upper Basic Schools. Data were collected using questionnaire and interview schedule and were analysed using simple percentage and standard deviation, while the hypothesis was tested using t-test at 0.05 level of significance. The results show that the patterns of gender representations portrayed by authors of Social Studies textbooks are imbalanced or biased and that gender specific content and images in Social Studies textbooks have influence on students’ career choices. The study concluded that stereotyped and biased textbooks will produce its likes and so will non-stereotyped and unbiased textbooks. Some recommendations were made among which are that there is need for the government and other education stakeholders to address the three different dimensions of gender biases and imbalances found in Social Studies textbooks; trainings and workshops on gender sensitive approach to textbook production should be organized for teachers, publishers, editors and illustrators.