The invisible reality: English teaching materials and the formation of gender and sexually oriented stereotypes (with a focus on primary education)

Abstract

Gender stereotypes, understood as those structured sets of beliefs about personal attributes of women and men, have a great influence over self-perspective and the social interaction and organisation. However, their effects are sometimes invisible, and a great effort should be made to develop awareness of their influence in the population. Our main claim is that School has an essential role to teach gender and sexual equality through the curricula, using teaching materials that are free of these stereotypes. The main aim of this study is to examine the presence of gender and sexually oriented stereotypes in various English teaching materials within the context of the Spanish Primary School, focusing on its last stage. This research carries out a qualitative and quantitative analysis of three English textbooks together with the students’ and teachers’ perceptions of gender stereotypes. The analysis is done thanks to the review of key concepts, such as gender awareness and sexual identity, as well as the presentation of various examination tools that have allowed us to evaluate the sexist content in the textbooks selected and offer some guidelines to avoid them in the English classroom.

Collective Effervescence, Self-Transcendence, and Gender Differences in Social Well-Being During 8 March Demonstrations

“…It draws noteworthy social and media visibility all around the world (e.g., Franco, 2018), as it states its nonconformity with the patriarchal structure that discriminates against women. Feminism today, a social movement with a long, extensive, diverse and globalized, transnational and intersectional history, is difficult to define based on one sole focus, since different ideological factions and very different socio-structural realities co-exist within the social movement (e.g., García Jiménez et al, 2016;Pellicer and Asin, 2018;Curiel, 2019). In line with other research, this study is based on the premise that feminism must be understood as a social movement based on the belief that women and men are equal and must have the same rights, and whose ultimate objective is to put an end to the subordination of women (Basow, 1992;Pellicer and Asin, 2018).…”

Table_8.DOCX

“…It draws noteworthy social and media visibility all around the world (e.g., Franco, 2018), as it states its nonconformity with the patriarchal structure that discriminates against women. Feminism today, a social movement with a long, extensive, diverse and globalized, transnational and intersectional history, is difficult to define based on one sole focus, since different ideological factions and very different socio-structural realities co-exist within the social movement (e.g., García Jiménez et al, 2016;Pellicer and Asin, 2018;Curiel, 2019). In line with other research, this study is based on the premise that feminism must be understood as a social movement based on the belief that women and men are equal and must have the same rights, and whose ultimate objective is to put an end to the subordination of women (Basow, 1992;Pellicer and Asin, 2018).…”