Gender representation in the visual illustrations of Indonesian high school English textbooks

Abstract

This study investigates the representation of gender in visual illustrations of junior high school English textbooks (English in Focus) in Indonesia. It is to see how gender is depicted and how the portrayal of gender differs among the grades. The result shows that the females and males are depicted in terms of their occupations, activity types, stereotyped roles and stereotyped characteristics. The findings of this study also revealed that females and males are portrayed differently among the grades. In this case, the Grade 7 book depicts more pictures compared to the Grades8 and 9 books in terms of the occupations, activity types and stereotyped gender roles, while females' and males' characteristics are represented in more equal ways among the grades