Language, Gender and Education II

Unit 3

In order to complete this unit successfully you will need the Course Reader to hand.

Textbooks

In this inital section of the unit we will focus on textbooks in the field of language teaching. Influential work has been carried out in this arena which has resulted in theoretical thinking about analysing textbook material in relation to gender being updated.

In the late 1970s, 1980s and early to mid 1990s, research on language, gender and textbooks tended to be content analyses of the written discourse within the publication under scrutiny. This included an analysis of sexist language, along with studies which focused on gender bias as result of how females and males were represented in terms of social roles and speech patterns. As a consequence of such studies, guidelines, such as those illustrated in the Sexist Language unit of Language and Gender I, were designed in order to attempt to eliminate sexism in textbook publications.

Click here to review the textbook guidelines which appeared in L&G I, Unit 4

Sunderland (2000: 151) provides a useful summary of older research projects which took a content analysis approach to investigating foreign language textbooks (mostly EFL):

Males were over-represented

Men tended to occupy both more powerful and a greater range of occupational roles than women

Both males and females performed gender stereotypical activities

Women tended to be stereotypically emotional and were more likely than male characters to be the butt of jokes and implied slurs

In spoken scripted dialogues, women spoke on fewer occasions, they spoke first far less often than males, and they were responsible for the performance of a far narrower 'range of discourse roles' (2000: 152).

In language learners' dictionaries, considerable discrepancies along gender lines have been discovered. In the Dictionary of English Language and Culture, Sunderland (2000b) reports on how men appeared in illustrations three times as often as women, and whilst men were described in occupational roles on 66 occasions, women were only seen in such roles 21 times.

The anti-political correctness movement that came about as a backlash to studies and guidelines which argued for prescriptive language intervention can also be witnessed in textbook research. O'Neill (1994) makes the controversial argument that stereotyping should be retained in language textbooks as it helps to make the language clearer. He also argues that it is not the role of textbooks to change students' views on gender relationships. The following two quotations summarise his position:

Most characters we encounter in a textbook are no more than names that occur once or twice and then never reappear. How can such characters be taken seriously either as positive or negative role models? We are often told that we should try to reverse typical conceptions of male and female roles in society so that women can be seen to be strong and decisive and men as caring and compassionate. But strong, and caring and compassionate about what? There is no point trying to portray characters this way if readers do not believe in them in the first place. To create believable characters, you need believable backgrounds, believable stories and a web of believable relationships that those characters enter into (1994: 69).

It is far more important to have believable characters that people in real life face than it is to project a sanitised, goody-goody world in which an ideal parity and equality between men and women already exists (1994: 71).

Activity

Do you think that O'Neill's views have any validity? Based on the knowledge that you have gained during your study of language and gender so far come up with a list of criticisms that could be cited at O'Neill's opinions.

It is noticeable that studies following the approach of content analysis have declined considerably from the late 1990s to the present. However, this is for reasons other than those cited by O'Neill. Sunderland attributes this decline to two factors. First of all, she argues that bias has become less evident as a result of changes in attitude brought about by earlier research. Secondly, theoretical advances have led to the view that ‘the text itself may not be the most appropriate focus of study ' (2000: 152). She suggests that whilst it is important for teachers to look for gender bias in the classroom materials that they are using, bias may be discovered in places other than within the text'.

Activity

For a different perspective on the issue of textbook representation, you should now read Kuzmic's (2000) article which appears in the Course Reader.

Is gender bias important?

Sunderland (2000a) points out that it is extremely difficult to prove how gender bias in texts can adversely affect learning, or that is has a negative influence on learners' gender identities. Readers interactively engage with texts, and different readers will have differing responses to material depending on their social background etc. Texts do not have one universal interpretation that readers will receive once they engage with material. Therefore, even if we are presented with 'an agreed case of gender bias in a text [this] cannot be said in any deterministic way to make people think in a gender biased way' (2000: 153). Readers can resist the gender bias, and teachers can use strategies such as allocating female speaking roles to male students and vice versa. It is therefore clear that there is no way of predicting how a teacher will teach a text.

As a consequence of these arguments, Sunderland suggests that instead of engaging in written text analysis, researchers need to conduct spoken discourse analysis of classroom interaction to investigate how textbooks are being used by teachers, therefore examining 'talk around the text' (2000: 1255) as opposed to simply investigating just the text itself.

Sunderland (2002) reports a number of studies that have been conducted by herself and her MA students that adopted this approach. We'll now look at some examples of their findings.

The first study was conducted by Julie Shattuck (1996) in Portugal where she analyses teacher use of a text entitled Upper Intermediate Matters. Her students were adult EFL learners. Shattuck observed teachers talking around a text entitled 'Just a piece of paper'. This text introduces a listening activity and focuses on different types of marriages. A recently married Indian male from Gujarat talks about his two recent weddings. The text could thus be interpreted as having a masculine bias as we get the bride groom's opinions but not those of the bride.

The male teacher did not stick to the text and used this as an opportunity to talk about marriage in the UK. He made the following comment:

the bride (.) usually (.) if it's especially for the church wedding will wear white (.) and the bridesmaids (.) she will often choose the (.) outfit for them (.) she usually chooses something horrible so they (.) don't look as good as her.

These comments by the male teacher are stereotypical and portray women in a very negative light. However, it is possible that the teacher was being ironic, which is something that the students may or may not have picked up on. Nevertheless, these comments in the learning environment could not have been predicted by any analysis of the textbook, nor can the textbook be attributed any blame for the stereotypical view of what Sunderland terms 'women beware women discourse' (2002: 234).

Another study conducted by Leontzakou (1997) uses ELT classes in Greece in order to observe teacher talk around the text. The first example she looked at was a unit taken from a textbook entitled Highflyer. The activity starts with photographs of two famous women and two famous men which is then followed up by the question 'what does your ideal boy or girl look like?' This text was interpreted as being progressive, representing gender in a non-traditional manner as it associates attractiveness with both sexes, as well as using an equal number of pictures.

Leontazakou positively evaluates a female teacher's talk around the text. The teacher asked the girls whether they thought the men were attractive, did the same with the boys, and then gave the students feedback such as 'ok that's how you feel'. She then used a picture of her own of three women to demonstrate the words 'fair', 'dark', 'straight' and 'curly' (she said that using a picture of women was only for reasons of convenience as it was a picture that she had handy). She then went back to the text and made the point that differences are a part of life.

In contrast, another female teacher dealt with the text in a different way. When she asked the male students which pictures of the women they liked best, the following interaction took place:

T:	Which one to [sic] you prefer from those two (.) the model or the
	Singer Ari
B:	The model
B1:	None [translated from Greek]
T:	In English
B:	Nothing
T:	None of them (.) why not (.) don't you like the blonde
B:	So what [translated from Greek]

In making such comments, the female teacher implies that being blonde makes women more attractive to males, therefore drawing on stereotypical assumptions about hair colour and females' physical attributes. She also uses the sexist term 'blonde' to refer to the woman, thus using sexist language in the classroom. Instead of using this as an opportunity to make the point that we all have different opinions, she expresses her own gender-biased assumptions. Again, none of this could have been predicted or is the responsibility of the textbook material.

Sunderland (2002) has used these works to develop an analytical framework based on their findings. She develops the idea of discursive practices of the speech acts of subversion and endorsement: the former refers to the teacher subverting the gendered discourses of the text (be they progressive or unprogressive) by challenging the written material, whereas the latter involves the teacher endorsing the gendered discourse of the text by agreeing with the material. Again, this can be with texts that are both progressive and unprogressive.

Sunderland goes on to argue that, as there are now more texts that represent a wider range of gender roles than ever before, it should be easier for teachers to endorse these more progressive works than it is for them to subvert the more traditional portrayal of stereotypical gender roles in older texts. In terms of further research, she argues that it would be interesting to investigate the extent to which the composition of the class in terms of age, gender, level and 'ability' may affect the teacher's talk around the text.

Exercise

Imagine that you are an ELT textbook writer. Invent a dialogue of between 20-30 lines between a female speaker and male speaker which uses non-sexist language and reverses traditional gender role expectations. You should also use stereotypical traits associated with women's speech styles for your male speaker and a men's speech styles for your female speaker. The level of language proficiency/the targeted student audience in terms of ability is up to you to decide. Write a commentary describing how you have made your text progressive (around 300 words). You should then list ways in which a teacher using your material in a class of mixed-sex adult language learners aged 20-40 could both endorse and subvert the progressive gender discourses that are contained in your script (600-800 words).

Written materials in schooled language

To conclude this unit, we will now examine recent commentaries surrounding written materials used in UK schools in light of the recent developments highlighted in the previous unit, that boys are underachieving at school according to recent statistics. One reason that has been given for the recent failures of boys is that inappropriate written materials are being used as learning resources in the classroom.

Swann (2002) details a publication from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority entitled Can Do Better. This report argued that boys prefer non-fictional texts. Therefore, in order to improve boys' literacy, it was important to use such texts more frequently. Furthermore, the report claims that boys who were reluctant to read got more involved when they were working on short stories which were picked specifically to appeal to boys in particular. It was reported that there was no reduction of interest from girls when such texts were selected.

The Can Do Better report also challenges the focus on narrative writing tasks in schools. The argument is made that this again works to disadvantage boys, due to the fact that they are more inclined to non-fiction. The report also states that the focus on narrative is not providing students with the skills needed later in life when they will need to adopt a written style of writing and persuading.

However, it is very interesting to point out that the factors which are said to be disadvantaging boys in this report were cited as being factors which disadvantaged girls 12 years earlier. Based on this, Swann argues the following: 'there is fear amongst feminists that this may lead to a diversion of energy, resources and general consideration toward boys, and a consequent materialization of girls' interests' (2002: 633).

In Australia, a far more theoretically sophisticated report was produced by Alloway and Gilbert (1997). They do not group boys together as if they are a homogeneous group, and their report makes the following crucial point:

The complex relationships between class, ethnicity and masculinity [...] may mean that privileged groups of boys are more likely to be encouraged to accept some forms of school regulation in anticipation of career and professional rewards in the post-schooling period (1997: 8).

Activity

Using the above quotation from the Australian Curriculum Corporation report for guidance, compile a list of criticisms that can be cited at UK Can Do Better report in terms of how it perpetuates a polarised, binary view of gender as well the idea of 'boys' as a single homogeneous group. What suggestions can you think of to improve the literacy skills of working class boys who belong to ethnic minority groups in the UK?

This activity concludes our study of textbooks and written teaching materials. We will now move on to investigate language and gender in cyberspace.

Online resource

For more information on gender and literacy issues in the UK, visit the following website, run by the UK's Literacy Trust. It includes reactions to Government policies on encouraging literacy amongst boys:

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/Boys/boysgovt.html