Presence and evaluation of gender treatment in the selected textbooks in slovenian elementary school

This thesis researches the presence and assessment of gender treatment in selected curriculum based textbooks in Slovenian 9-year primary school. Structural relations of domination, discrimination, power and control can be sensed in public discourse used in media or educational institutions. Textbooks are important channels of public discourse, which at the same time both represents as well as legitimises the society. Thus, the main interest of this thesis lies in the communication elements that may be taken for granted, yet they imply the predominant societal concepts of gender representations and gender roles. The empirical part of the thesis is based on the combined methodology of text analysis in eight approved self-contained workbooks for Slovene with the aim to disclose the potential elements of gender inequality. The results of the analysed teaching/learning materials reveal the representation is in favour of the male gender, while in some cases male and female fictional characters are attributed typical or even stereotypical roles and features. Within this paradigm, women are portrayed as more emotional, caring, passive and engaged in private spheres, while men typically exhibit a certain degree of indifference but greater ambition and engagement in public-oriented activities. Following the pattern, educational, administrative and service vocations are mostly practised by women, on the other hand, scientific, technological and technical careers are typically reserved for men. The included evaluation questionnaire enables teachers to assess unbiased gender discourse in elementary school textbooks. Thus, primary level educators are able to reflect on text elements with potentially questionable social connotations and can subsequently modify their teaching approach by customizing frontal instruction through omitting problematic terminology, addition, modification or alternative explanation