Gender Representation In Public Schools Textbooks Of Balochistan

Abstract

Gender became the attention of contemporary scholarships when women were found in domestic issues as well as gender inequality in terms of job opportunities, education, health, political participation etc. Many studies have been carried out regarding women issues and provided policies and laws to provide opportunities for women to contribute in the society. So, gender presentation in school textbooks is newly emerging field of study in the academia. The present study focuses on women presentation in school textbooks of Balochistan. The English Books for Class I, to V were taken as sample for present study. These books were selected through purposive sampling. All conversations, texts and images related to women misrepresentation were taken from selected books. These data were analysed by the help of Michal Foucault’s theory of power/Knowledge and Discourse Analysis and also Cultural Hegemony by Antonio Gramsci. The findings of the present study suggest that textbooks of Balochistan are clearly misrepresenting women and promoting the male hegemony. The women are shown in domestic works and teaching jobs which are considered soft works. On the other hand, men are shown in school administrations, public domains, ownerships and in those jobs which need more power and energy. So, it is clear that schools textbooks promote the gender biased approach because men are shown in powerful, prestigious, well reputed and respectable jobs and women are shown in less respected and less valued positions.

Women Representation in Textbooks in Pakistan: Impact on Career and Study Choices of Female Students Enrolled in the Postgraduate Programmes

“…Ali and Hussain's suggestion (2019) that "to reduce the gender biased attitude in textbooks" the policymakers should revisit the "policies related to education… on urgent basis" (p. 96) was also supported by the participants. The participants were in agreement with the suggestion that to address issues related to women the textbook regime should consult women "while developing the policies and laws regarding education, otherwise, women would be victimized and would be most disadvantaged group in the society" (Sultan et al 2019).…”

“…The textbook regime in Pakistan is comprised of curriculum bureaus and the textbook boards constituted by each provincial ministry of education in its domain. The most recent studies (R. Ali & Hussain 2019;Iqbal, Saleem, & Ahmad 2019;Sultan, Shah, & Fazal 2019;Waqar & Ghani 2019) highlighted how the textbook regimes in Pakistan perceived women in Pakistani society and ascribed to them stereotypical roles in different stories found in textbooks. These findings were not different from the earlier studies that analysed textbooks (Aziz 1993;Mirza 2006;Nayyar & Salim 2005) in spite of more women taking up the role of textbook writers and editors but still the leading roles were given to male writers and editors.…”

“…The latest researchers (Adil & Yasin 2018;Aghaa, Syed, & Mirani 2018;R. Ali & Hussain 2019;Iqbal et al 2019;Sultan et al 2019) have found the following regarding female representation in the textbooks in Pakistan:…”

“…The male family members wanted them to pursue a career where they were among other female colleagues and not among many male colleagues. The research asked if they heard it from their family members and all of them responded, 'yes'; their family emphasized joining a profession considered a respectable profession for women because there would be time for the participants to look after their family (husband and children, after marriage) and do all the necessary chores, what Sultan et al (2019) called "3Cs (Cooking, Cleaning, Childrearing)" (p. 67). A few of the participants believed that this reduced the choices available to them as some of the participants shared their dream, of becoming a lawyer and a social activist, just like Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani, but family pressure made them choose their current field of study.…”

“…Ali, Hassan, & Hanan 2019;R. Ali & Hussain 2019;Sultan et al 2019;Waqar & Ghani 2019) suggesting that the textbooks "are gender biased" and "there is an unequal representation of both genders" (Ahmad & Shah 2019, p. 17). The two authors rightly observe that, Thus, the content of the textbook seems to be systematically manipulated in favour of males.…”