Gender Representations in Biology Textbooks for Secondary Schools in China

Abstract

Abstract The gender gap, which is thought to mediate students’ future career trajectory, remains an issue in science education communities over the past decades. Although many factors can contribute to the gender gap in science, textbooks are one of important factors considering their empowering role in shaping students’ attitudes toward gender and projecting their own gender roles in science. How gender is represented in visual matters in biological science textbooks is rarely charted. This study intended to explore the extent to which the illustrations in six biological science textbooks for secondary schools advocate an egalitarian gender ideology by mapping the ratio of female-to-male and enquiring how males and females were rendered through the three dimensions of representational, compositional and interactive meaning of social semiotic theory. The findings reveal that the textbooks appear to be gender neutral at face value since the social semiotic analysis of the individuals in the illustrations suggests that males and females are portrayed impartially. However, the textbooks persist in a sexist ideology through the way in which the quantitative inequality of the two sexes, successful role models and research activities as well as the subtle and nuanced strategies employed by the textbooks to downplay successful female role models and to portray women in more assistant and subordinate roles in professional activities. The gendered message delivered in the textbooks has the potential to disempower female students’ career aspiration and influence their perceptions of their roles in science in relation to their gender.