Representation of gender identities in the second secondary school textbooks

In this article, an attempt was made to discuss the representation of gender identity in the textbooks of the second secondary school. The main idea of this article was that the gender patterns in the society are reproduced by means of dominant discourse and it is tried to naturalize some existing gender roles or their continuation in the society. One of the most important of these tools is textbooks, which try to internalize the dominant gender patterns in the sensitive period of socialization in order to shape the gender identity in teenagers and to do this, they highlight the desirable and reference roles in textbooks.

To answer the research question, the qualitative content analysis method was used to analyze the textbooks of the second secondary school. The unit of analysis in this research was male and female characters in the majority of images and writing. The sample population of the research included the second secondary school textbooks (in the first, second and third grades). In this research, purposeful sampling was used, and all the contents that somehow dealt with issues related to gender were analyzed.

The research results supported the main hypothesis of this research and showed that traditional identity patterns existed in different dimensions of female identity representations in textbooks and that traditional female identities were indicated as exemplary and successful women. Also, our data showed that these texts aimed at naturalizing these identity patterns and tried to show women's social roles and activities as having secondary importance through displaying some of the traditional roles of women in the family as desirable. In this regard, it seems that the textbooks largely ignore the social changes in the society or introduce them as a social harm. On this basis, according to the main discourse in these textbooks, the ideal female identity is composed of housewives who try to fulfill their roles as housewives in a desirable way. Therefore, a successful woman will be the one who can move in the best way towards the satisfaction of her husband and children. Therefore, things such as the motherhood feelings, possessing emotions and feelings, being the center of affection and love, and the like are mainly among the components of gender identity interpretation for female students and playing this role is emphasized as a strength for women. Moreover, when women play a role in housework and raising children and play the role of mother and housewife, it is associated with a kind of sensory and emotional favorability. Also, the obtained data showed that compared to men, women are represented to a much lesser extent in outside jobs and social roles, and it seems that the current educational system tries to increase the emphasis on women's role in the home by hiding or underrepresentation of women's jobs.