An investigation into gender representations in an English coursebook

Since the stereotypical gender representations in coursebooks produce inequalities and lead to keep the existing inequalities in society, this issue of hidden curriculum was the focus of this study. This study aimed to investigate the four units of the ELT coursebook “Progress” in order to find out what occupational roles, leisure time activities and household activities are assigned to male and female characters, the proportion of male characters to female characters in images and how gender is positioned in the visual discourse. The results of the analysis reveal that the coursebook has positive messages in relation to gender representations but still has a sexist point of view in terms of the categories that were examined throughout the study. This indicates that there is an improvement regarding gender representations; yet, it does not present a fair representation of female and male characters in all categories