Uncovering Gender Representation in Farsi Biyamuzim (Let’s Learn Persian) Series

Language teaching textbooks are a mirror of a nation's culture and customs and can reflect the attitudes and values of a society. Therefore, considering that each element in educational books has a meaning that is decoded by the readers, the present study intended to examine the texts and pictures in "Let's Learn Persian" textbook series in terms of the way gender is represented. To this end, among 30 lessons in each volume, three lessons from the beginning, the middle, and the end of the book were selected for analysis and their texts and pictures were coded based on the study's criteria. Findings indicated that in all considered criteria except for one in the first volume, where female characters outnumbered male ones, gender bias in favor of men was observed. Results of the chi-square test indicated a statistically significant difference with respect to all the criteria, except for the order of males and females' mention in a phrase, among different volumes of this series. Additionally, analysis of pictures suggested gender bias in favor of men in terms of the number of female and male characters in the pictures. In general, more women were depicted in the first volume in that most of the characters of the lessons examined in this volume were children and women and the topics revolved around introducing people and everyday events; however, the intermediate and advanced volumes, in which the topics shifted to social and literary ones, showed the underrepresentation of female characters in texts and pictures.