Gender Stereotypes In School Textbooks

1 Professor PhD, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania, elena.cocorada@unitbv.ro Abstract: Gender stereotype patterns are present in more cultural products and consistent across a variety of reading materials and in various cultures. This paper aims to examine the gender stereotypes in school textbooks for primary level. We analyzed the curriculum materials (textbooks, supplies) and two Romanian fairy tales included, using a qualitative approach. The findings confirm the negative discrimination of women and favoring treatment of men. In both the pictures and the texts, masculine presence is dominant and the occupations of men and women are often traditionalist and anachronistic. Activities of men are presented more frequently in public space, of women in the private space, according to the negative gender stereotypes. The analysis of the most famous fairy tales, present for a long time in the curriculum, identified heroes and heroines whose behaviors confirm the gender stereotype and others who are counter-stereotyped. Comparison of same studies about gender stereotypes in school textbooks, conducted at different years in Romanian context, indicated that gender equity increase in recent schoolbooks, including increased visibility of women. The last part of this paper proposes some ways to reduce gender stereotypes effects, useful to teachers, school counselors and parents, in a democratic and anti-bias school and family.


Introduction
Gender equality is a human right, but gender discrimination violates the law and is ineffective for individuals and groups. Where we talk about gender inequality, the reference is often to excluded or disadvantaged women in different fields. Therefore empowerment of women is a critical aspect of promoting gender equality, by focus to redress power imbalances.
The recent analysis of World Economic Forum founded that many countries progressed in gender equality, but others revealed gender gaps (WEF, 2017). During the past 50 years, women"s participation in the work market, management, in sport, and in professional education has increased, while men"s activities same remain more stable. It is useful to check if the gender-related stereotypes changed to express these new and good realities.
A study about the evolution in gender stereotypes in perceptions of U.S. colleges" students has been compared data from 1983 to data from 2014. Findings indicated that personality traits and behaviors connected to men and women images (e.g. kindness, competitiveness, tending the house), occupations (nurse, engineer), and physical characteristics (delicate, deep voice) are strongly stereotyped. These results attest the durability of basic gender stereotypes and highlight the deeply embedded of gender stereotypes in social relations and personality structure. Conclusion of study showed that the favorable changes in the gender equality not transform all traditional beliefs about images of women and men (Haines, Deaux, & Lofaro, 2016).
Other past study with children from pre-school to fifth grades confirms the presence of stereotyped representations. Girls are described by appearance stereotypes, such as pretty, jewelry, having long hair, wearing elegant dresses, and make-up. In contrast, descriptions of boys are focused on personality traits, such as playing rough, fighting, or by challenging activity (Miller, Lurye, Zosuls, & Ruble, 2009).
A study conducted in Romania (Balica, Fartuşnic, Horga, Jigău, & Voinea, 2004) founded the evidence to support idea that gender stereotypes are widely present in schools. The characteristics attributed and recommended by the teachers to boys and girls are typical for patriarchate. These are frequently focused on the ethics of justice and on the ethics of care, respectively. Traits self-reported by students depend on residence and age: in urban and high school students, they are further away from gender stereotype, while in rural and among younger students, traits are closer to the gender stereotype. The paper concluded: (i) gender stereotypes are present in the Romanian school in all levels; (ii) teachers are unaware of the importance of critical analysis of their own gender-related behaviors. In a relatively recent research using the focus group (Grama, Vişinescu, & Cocoradă, 2013), participants, parents and teachers, both men and women, noted that students not reacted to stereotypes gender, does not distinguish the gender imbalances present in educational content.
The gender bias is transmitted in family and school, by parents" and teachers" expectations and attitudes, by mass-media, personality attributes and social roles recommended (Eagly & Wood, 2005) or by cultural products. In contemporary world, the impact of school is major, young people spending a great part of the day in ordinary courses or in after school program. Most pupils often believe that textbooks can not contain errors, that they are infallible (Fontanini, 2007).
But school is a gendered institution (Kendall, 2008) by both formal curriculum and hidden curriculum. Especially by hidden, not by formal curriculum, students" beliefs about their abilities, relations and expectations are influenced linked to the issues of power and control in the dominant society (Alsubaie, 2015;Frawley, 2005;Islam & Asadullah, 2018;Kently, 2009). Student's perceptions of gender roles are affected by explicit gender stereotypes in society and by the task and feedback, images and texts included in instructional materials, by teachers' behaviors, and by system of rewards.
Some studies indicate that the presence of negative stereotypes in class-life impeded performance and block the native potential of students, such as of girls in math (Ambady, Shih, Kim, & Pittinsky, 2001). The negative effects of gender bias concern the girls' self-esteem, self-confidence, achievement and aspiration (Frawley, 2005;Islam & Asadullah, 2018). The gender bias affects the relationships between girls and boys, respect, career orientation, and effective group development by excluding or diminishing possible contributions of women.
Focus on diminish gender discrimination in childhood and adolescence by cultural products is explained by socio-cognitive approach and development theories. The gender schema organizes information about gender, guides the perceptions of the individual, being more flexible in childhood (Bem, 1981). Some studies show that the issue of gender differences is often see only during school, when children have already formed stereotypical attitudes and behaviors (McHale, Crouter, & Whiteman, 2003).

Literature review about gender stereotypes in school textbook
As cultural product, books mirror values, norms, beliefs and behaviors shared by a group in real life and serve as socializing tools to pass values to the next generation. The normative gender can manifest in characters and stories presented by images and texts (Earles, 2017).
The gender biases in school instructional materials have invisible a long time. In the seven decade of XX century, mainly in the U.S., gender imbalance has been systematically documenting. The researches confirmed gender differences: girls and women were almost invisible, passive and immobile, while men were active, expansive. Boys are described as leaders and rescue others, while girls follow and serve others. Male occupations had a higher status than females" occupations. Adult men and women are equally stereotyped: men engage in a variety of occupations, women are presented only as wives and mothers. Females are underrepresented in the titles, central roles and main characters at a ratio 1:11 (Weitzman, Eifler, Hokada, & Ross, 1972). This effort to reveal and ameliorate gender biases in textbooks, or curricula, propagates worldwide (Blumberg, 2008).
Other studies showed too that females were typically portrayed as dependent and generally incapable, while the males were typically portrayed as generally competent and independent (Peterson & Lach, 1990). Gender stereotypes present in French textbooks reveal a significant presence of male characters. Additionally, men are presented in a professional environment, while more female are placed in the domestic environment. Women are discriminated against, absent in some social spheres, as political and intellectual (Tisserant & Wagner, 2008).
Some studies showed that in many school-books, both female and male characters are sometimes pictured in a leisure activity to avoid the imbalance of gendered occupations. More detailed analyzes detected gender discrimination in these cases: female characters were most likely represented using a household artifact, while male characters were depicted with production artifacts (Poarch & Monk-Turner, 2001).
Recent studies of some English textbooks revealed under representation of female characters in Slovenia, Greek, Hong Kong, Australia, and Ireland (Filipović, 2018;Gouvias & Alexopoulos, 2016;Lee & Collins, 2010;Sovic & Hus, 2015). Males are more active and femalesquiet, passive. Girls are active only when she is cooking or taking care of a baby. Male is presented as a person who eats, or playing football with their male friends. Women are depicted in a more limited range of social roles, presented as weaker, and as operating primarily within domestic domains. The activities of girls are socially approved, while the male characters are inventive and test their limits. Boys and girls have typically gendered visual characteristics: the girl wears red or pink trousers, while the boy is dressed in blue trousers.
A comparison of a popular primary school English-language textbooks, published in Hong Kong in 2005 with the same series published in 1988 revealed increase in gender equity in the recent books, including visually and textually visibility of women (Lee & Collins, 2014). The textbooks, children's literature (even award-winning titles), and computer software continue to portray stereotyped gender-role, behaviors, emotions, and occupations. But, number of females increased as the main character in the stories (Gooden & Gooden, 2001).
A very recent study (Islam & Asadullah, 2018) has compared more textbooks from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan. The findings confirmed gender bias: women textual and pictorial indicators, combined, share only 40.4%. Female are predominantly introverted and passive, mostly placed in domestic space and in-door activities, and their occupations are mostly traditional and less prestigious. Male are systematically overrepresented and their occupations are prestigious, modern, they are often placed in out-door activities.

Romanian studies on stereotypes in school textbooks
One of the first Romanian studies analyzing the issue of gender inequality in school textbooks in the primary school appeared in the 1990s and identified the unbalanced gender representation (Grünberg, 1996). Children are "bombarded" with images and texts that numerically disadvantage the female gender at a ratio between 1:2 and 1:3.5. Images show more men/boys in sledding, talking about friendship or leisure time. The girls shopping, listening, singing, dusting, raising hens (they are less active), but boys do sports, play on computers or robots, paint, are more active and solve difficult situations. The features attributed to the girls are traditional: they are afraid, beautiful, blond, gentle and good, while the boys are brave, active, and hardworking. Women are teachers, doctors or farmers, biologists, the men occupations are more various. The historical figures are selected exclusively from men. More than 20 years ago, the author's conclusion was that textbooks maintain and reinforce gender biases.
Another study founded similar conclusions (Grünberg & Ştefănescu, 2002). The authors showed that:  World of school textbooks is predominantly masculine, imagistic and ideological dominated by colleagues, brothers, grandfathers, teachers, peasants, kings, scholars, musicians;  Gender is dichotomically built, emphasizing differences and supporting more segregation than gender collaboration; men do not often appear in private life situations, and women rarely appear in public situations;  Women appear more frequently in natural roles as mothers, grandmothers, sisters;  The professional roles of women are poorly diversified: teachers, doctor, farmer, librarian;  Female characters are placed in the private sphere, they are responsible for small groups, rarely communicate with the outside world, they do not have contacts with official figures;  Successful models present famous men, affirmed in the public world, successful women are absent;  Gender roles are predominantly traditional and often anachronous (Grünberg & Ştefănescu, 2002).
A later study (Balica et al., 2004), focusing on several aspects of the gender dimension in education, has analyzed in one of the chapters more schoolbooks. In primary school textbooks, nearly 60% of boys' images and 57% of boys' names, and only 20% of girls' images and 6% of girls' names were identified. The most pronounced gender imbalance is identified in History schoolbook, 64 females and 325 male, at a ratio 1:5.
Of the total images of traditional male activities, 54 are made by men and 6 by women. Boys play with cars or ball, girls with dolls, they do gymnastics, ballet and skating. Girls and women are described by kindness, gentleness, sensitivity, supportive ability, synthesis capacity and willingness to cooperate, preference for humanist field. They are associated with negative features, as weak, evil; sometimes they are cry, they are emotional, superstitious, or they promote compliance. Men and boys are represented as active in the public area, capable of affirmation in various domains. Sometimes, they do work in the private sphere (they repair, paint, clean the garden). The conclusion of the paper is that the activities promoted are traditional, differentiated on the public-private dimension. The traits associated with the characters correspond to the gender stereotype and converge with those assumed by the students and assigned to them by the teachers (Balica et al., 2004).
Other study conducted almost ten years ago (Grama et al., 2013) examines gender discrimination in four textbooks for 1 st grade, published in 2004. In pictures are presented 1032 female characters and 1348 male characters (ratio 1:1.3). In the texts are 103 female characters and 158 male characters (ratio 1:1.5). The activities of the family members are stereotypical presented: boys play with cars, trains, swords, usually "out"; girls play "in the house" with dolls, sing, wash; mom is at the kitchen, father reads the newspaper. There is a case of traditional male activity (participation in the math competitions) that is carried out by girls and a case of traditional feminine activity (meal preparation, flower waxing, dusting, and washing of boats) that is carried out by boys.
Occupations proposed to the girls are limited: 39 pictures present occupations, but 25 are for boys only, and four are for girls only. Girls are teachers, farmers, dentists, nurses, librarians and sellers, as in other examined textbooks. Men are fishermen, sellers, builders, aviators, bakeries, soldiers, reporters, farmers, millers, foresters, postmen. It is obvious that challenging occupations, requiring specialization, physical strength, using advanced technologies, that can ensure social prestige, power, are reserved for men.
Gender discrimination is also identified in the lyceum cycle (Foltea, 2016): male characters appear more frequently (66%), females less often. Successful men are models of power in the public sphere, women in private (16.5%) or public and private (16%). In this study, roles, gender relations and success patterns are predominantly patriarchal and anachronistic, with the risk of perpetuating such behaviors, and of experiencing gender conflicts by adolescents.

Method
This paper aims to examine gender representations in school textbook for primary level and some fairy tales included in curriculum. Our objectives are: (i) to examine the gender stereotypes presented in school textbooks for the 1 st grade (textbooks elaborated in 2015 and classroom supplies elaborated in 2012); (ii) to compare the new results with the past findings: Grünberg (1996), Grünberg and Ştefănescu (2002), Balica, Fartusnic, Horga, Jigău, and Voinea (2004), Grama, Vişinescu, and Cocoradă (2013); (iii) to examine the gender-related image of hero and heroine in two Romanian fairy tales. A qualitative approach and the content analysis technique are used. The research questions are.
1. How are man and woman portrayed in the recent school textbook?
2. How is the type o success model elaborated by the authors or selected from history?
3. How are man and woman portrayed in fairy tales included? 4. Which is the correspondence between the results of different studies on gender stereotypes presented in Romanian textbooks?
The corpus of current research comprises first and second volume of the Communication in the Romanian Language, manual for first grade (Mihăilescu, Piţilă, Grigorescu & Coman, 2015a, 2015b  Moor both written by Ion Creangă. The stories choice is explained by the fairy tales mentioning in the analyzed manual. Fairy tales are known to be marked by negative stereotypes, highlighted in particular by feminist literature, but appreciated for their positive impact on education (Kready, 1916;Tatar, 2003). Our choice of textbooks and supplies for 1 st grade is explained by the great impact of instructional materials at the low school ages.
For the studies comparison, we have used more criteria (Table 1) recommended by the stereotypes schema (Huston, 1983;Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006) and already identified in the previously described research. The textbooks and supplies were analyzed, counting the appearances of the characters in the images and their own names in all the texts. In supplies, we also identified the use of red, pink and blue colors for girls and boys.
In all documents, we did not count personages in collective character or when they are vague, confuse. The differences between girls and women, boys and men are highlighted only in few situations.

Results
The results will be organized according to the objectives and questions of the research.

Prevalence, occupations, features presented in a school textbook for the first grade, elaborated in 2015
The pictures show 147 women/girls and 143 men/boys (ratio almost 1:1). In the texts, the prevalence of the two categories is similar to that of the images: 182 words are women or girls, and 223 present men and boys, so slightly unfavorable to female (ratio 1:1.2). We note the efforts of the authors to introduce almost in every text the pair of names (e.g. Dana -Doru, Horia -Hermine, Chira -Chiriac). Inspired by a previous work (Grunberg & Ştefănescu, 2002), we test the balance of grandmother's and grandfathers" representation. The current result resumes the past result: 15 women and 35 men are present in pictures and words (ratio 1:2.3). Women and girls perform the following activities: they measure, observe, help the elderly, wears beads, pick flowers, play violin, go to the mill, paint, play with rope, wait on the shore a boy left with the boat, listen carefully, go to a concert, care for flowers, make socks, donuts and gymnastics, learn daily, care for children etc. The boys/men make the market, digging, bring water, cultivating vegetables, going to the boat, playing, reading stories, displaying pictures, talking on the phone, fishing, watering the flowers, playing the violin, giving a concert and library, playing to xylophone, go through a difficult route, solve a labyrinth. A lot of activities carried out together are proposed: girls and boys draw a map sharing tasks, draw, and go to theater, museum, and walks through the forest etc. The set of more activities conducted together, avoiding the segregation, is a progress in gender balance.
A source of increasing equity could also be appreciated in the image of children doing cleanliness together. However, we can notice that the boy wiping dust from a computer, a modern artifact, an industrial product, while the girl brushed a red dress. A closer analysis of the texts allows a frequent identification of unequal treatment in these activities. We present as examples some pairs of sentences in the same universe of discourse: Gigi brings two pretzels vs. Gina has long hair. / The boy is in the boat. vs. Bianca is waiting for the shore. / Gelu reads the legend of the hammer vs. Girls listen carefully. This is a new proof that boys are described as being more active and girls -passive.
To boys have explicitly attributed personality traits: skillful, cheerful, attentive, not afraid, determined, demanding person, with good results, and competent. Other attributes are expressed in the masculine, although they are not associated with a person: hardworking, diligent, obedient, polite, sad, wandering, determined, demanding. We note that in Romanian language, there are often different grammar forms for the two genres that may highlight the linguistic sexism.
For the first class, attributes expressed in the masculine is partly explicable through learning level. Some words like polite, ardent, obedient (politicoasă, silitoare, ascultătoare) are difficult to write, but other words do not contain diphthongs! In the first volume of the manual, girls are not explicitly associated with a personality trait, while in the second they are presented as smiling, courageous, sad, empathetic, graceful, delicate, and famous.

Success models
Successful models proposed to pupils belong to childhood or adulthood, being elaborated by the authors or selected from history. The successful portrait belongs to childhood is only one for girls, and two for boys. Beyond the number of words, 43:44, the traits attributed to the boy in one of the portraits, are more numerous (exceptional talent, works very expressive, exigency, example for colleagues), composition is more complex, includes a dialogue. The traits attributed to the girl, in addition to talent and success (representation is magical, is queen of gymnastics), aim the beauty and physical appearance (has a silver suit). This is a classic stereotype in describing women as pretty, having long hair, and elegant dresses.
The schoolbook offers to students the opportunity to meet literary works. But all texts selected have written by men and can strengthen the idea of the man-writer identity.
The Romanian personalities selected by the author are only the men, women being totally invisible as historian figures. Additionally, in the mnemonic list of letters, there are two names and pictures of boys, Quintus and Willy, but never of girls.
Analysis of school supplies confirms the presence of gendered visual characteristics: 20 girls and 55 boys appear in the illustrations (ratio 1:2.75). Clothing colors are varied, but red and pink are used for 70 girls and for 16 boys, while blue is used for 19 girls and for 46 boys.

Images of women and men in fairy tales
The analyzed textbook also refers to other fairy tales belonging to the universal literature, Red Hood and Cinderella, but we have opted for Romanian ones.
The extract from the fairy tale White Moor presents the hero as a brave, determined teenager, unlike his older, fearful brothers. He is son of an emperor, leaves the parental home of his own initiative to honor a family duty. He goes the same path of maturation as many heroes, passes more tests by being helped or by his own strengths. To overcome the obstacles, he build alliances with a strong woman (Holy Sunday) with small animals (bees, fish), with gifted beings (team members). The princess, his romantic partner, is beautiful, having special powers and knowledge.
The hero becomes a model of kindness, courage, optimism, gradually discovering its own personality. At the end of her journey, he becomes the leader, acquires power, fame, and personal happiness. Hero and heroine are rewarded through wealth and high social status. Both portraits Revista Românească pentru December, 2018 Educaţie Multidimensională Volume 10, Issue 4 have stereotypical traits: the hero is more active, placed in the public sphere, and controls his destiny. His partner is only relatively active, proposing difficult tests to choose the husband who responds to a maximum standard (Cocoradă, 2018). A wonderful female character is Holy Sunday. She has great knowledge and skills, and offers help only to those who deserve it. The old woman is active and lives independently, isolated on an island. Her life space is remote from human communities, populated by objects with magical powers. Holy Sunday is a precious mentor in the early stages of the hero's journey. She engages in overcoming obstacles, encourages and motivates White Moor, thoroughly describes procedures, builds scaffolds for the inexperienced adolescent. She effectively helps run some activities, but does not solve completely the problems.
The presence of this powerful woman is interpreted by some commentators as a reflex of the matriarchy. Her portrait is very far from stereotyped women. The image of this woman is different from the images of real-life women described by schoolbook, while the image of White Moor is closer to the gender stereotype. Some Romanian fairy tales have authentic, empowered heroines that question the absolute generalization of masculine power and authority (Cocoradă, 2018).
The extract from the fairy tale Woman's Daughter and the Old Man's Daughter display two pairs of opposite traits "beautiful and diligent" and "ugly and evil". Two girls make a journey, like White Moor, but their works are not spectacular. They are confronted with help requests coming from familiar household, but situated outside the household: caring an apple tree, a fountain and a bread oven, caring of the sick puppy and Holy Sunday" wild animals. The described behaviors converge with the activities proposed by the more textbooks for real-life girls and women: to work hard, to care for others, closer to private space.
The values promoted by father are obedience, diligence, kindness, and are almost universally associated with the status of the woman in fairy tales. They are different from those recommended to White Moor. The presence of stereotyped personality traits is rewarded by modest means (pies, fruits, ornaments) but also by wealth. Lack of solicitude, malice, low empathy, greed are sanctioned by the absence of rewards and, unduly, by death. Girls" representations are strongly stereotyped and less favorable comparing to man representation.
This story promotes the feminine beauty ideal, maintained, over the years, by invoked them in schoolbooks, and can limit the live of women (El Shaban, 2017). This approach could be a threat for girls that feel a social pressure to comply with conventional standards of beauty. Exposing girls and boys to an association of goodness with beauty and ugliness with wickedness can affect the self-confidence of girls who do not consider themselves beautiful and trouble the relationships between students. In addition to rewarding beauty and goodness, the end of fairy tales is also a return to masculine domination because, after the old woman death "the hens did not sing any more at the old man house".

Comparison between the results of different studies
We have selected relevant criteria for this comparison, recommended by gender analysis schema and used in quoted studies. The table highlights a small, but present, favorable evolution in the ratio of women-man representations, which are balanced in the manual published in 2015. For the other criteria, the report remains unbalanced. Occupational discrimination, identified in Romanian society (Pasti, 2003) is also reproduced in textbooks. Differences in occupations and everyday activities can be symbolically synthesized by the characterization of Zipes (1983: 25) "The male acts, the females waits". Their significance has become emblematic for gender discrimination.
Research shows that male writers, their still and values dominate the school books world. Exclusion or under-representation of one gender in the textbook, such as historical figures, or writers, is one form of gender stereotype and discrimination.

Limitations of the research
The results should be viewed with caution. The corpus is very small, and the selection of analyzed textbooks is subjective. The missing of multiple coders, men and women, can alter interpretations by the author's stereotypes.

Educational consequences
The social context of these results has been marked by various efforts to promote the values of equal opportunities in recent decades (Lee, 2014). Although there are favorable changes in gender equality in real life, they do not transform all traditional beliefs about images of women and men.
Correcting the stereotypes of school textbooks are likely to fuel discrimination. Some recommendations for textbook and teacher designers are outlined in the cited papers:  Learning to recognize gender bias both in their own behavior and in the attitudes and behaviors of others is a must for parents, teachers and textbooks' authors (Tisserant & Wagner, 2008);  Selecting literature that presents non-traditional characters and protagonists engaged in counter-stereotypical behaviors to maximize students' achievement and growth (Filipović, 2018);  Encourage students to critically examine materials for gender bias, when is not possible to select nontraditional characters;  Identification of appropriate cultural models for both girls and boys (Grünberg & Ştefănescu, 2002);  Making visible girls and boys, women and men in all social spheres;  Systematic work of deconstruction of ordinary stereotypes, as "Boys act, girls wait";  Pay attention to language, rejection of androcentric terms and introduction of appropriate female terms for occupations;  Formative evaluation of the schoolbooks, as assessment during their development, realized by the authors with the experts' participation.
Because stereotyped representations can reinforce traditional gendered roles, controversy persists: writers and textbooks" authors should reflect reality or they should lead social change and strive for gender equality (Lee & Collins, 2010).
The analysis of school textbooks and fairy tales included in the curriculum indicated the presence of gender stereotypes and masculine domination. The conclusions are convergent in the literature review. Stereotyped patterns are consistent across a variety of reading materials and in different cultures. However, some longitudinal research founded that gender equity increase in recent books, including increased visibility of women.
The textbooks analyzed by us are written by women, but this does not influence the wrong treatment and does not remove male dominance from illustrations and texts. Stereotypes are not only present in social group; they are internalized and difficult to control.
Motivated by the social cognitive and hidden curriculum theories, we have examined teaching and learning materials concerning the presence of stereotypes. Activity is a must, parents, teachers and students often give total trust to textbooks.