Where is she? : A quantitative content analysis and semiotic image analysis from a gender perspective of textbooks in history for grades 4-6

This study contains an analysis of images through a gender perspective of three history text books for middle schools. The aim of this study is to clarify if the images reflect a gender power structure where men are superior women. The answered questions were: do women and men appear as often in the pictures of the books? How are women and men portrayed from a gender perspective in the pictures? What possible consequences could the portrayal of men and women cause the education and pupils? Our theoretical perspective is Yvonne Hirdman’s gender theory, Vivien Burr’s social constructionism and Ferdinand de Saussure’s and Roland Barthes’s theory about semiotics. Our methods were a quantitative content analysis combined with a qualitative semiotic analysis of images. The quantitative content analysis showed that there is an overrepresentation of men in the pictures of the books. The qualitative semiotic analysis showed that men are portrayed as main characters in the pictures. This by given more space by positions, accessories and activities. Women on the other hand is portrayed as passive and to some extent as accessories to the men. The women seem to rule in the sphere of children and home, while men seem to be absent in these same areas. Women and men are also physically separated on the images which makes the gender power structure even more clear.