Gender Based Social Expectations: An analysis of the role of textbooks in primary school

This project analyzes the presence of gender stereotypes in the textbooks used in elementary school, with a special focus on the literature used for children in the first up to the fifth grade. This study is mainly focused on gender stereotypical signs in texts and illustrations on areas such as family roles, physical appearance, generic nouns and pronouns, and professions. It further showcases the impact that these textbooks, specifically women and men representation have on children on their future endeavors. The study represents existing evidence in Kosovo, including information on Kosovar education, legal framework, and similar research to this project. Research for this project was conducted by a combination of primary and secondary data. The secondary data was gathered from different sources; whereas, the primary data was gathered through semi-structured interviews as well as small scale experiments. The results gathered confirm that social expectations based on gender are present and they cover a great portion of space in school textbooks. The existing gender stereotypes in school textbooks play an important role on child development and enforcement of these stereotypes in the society overall