Representation of women's employment in the textbooks of Iranian schools

The increasing trend in women's market employment since 1950s in the world has been documented as the most important indication for 'the revolution in gender roles' (Davis 1984, Cotter et al 2001). Despite the significant capabilities of women and the substantial achievements facilitating female labor force participation in the recent years (such as substantial increase both in women's university education and in their mean age at marriage, a significant fall in fertility rate, and the increasing trend in positive attitude towards women's work outside the home), women in Iran still hold a low level of employment. The low rate of women's employment mainly lies in socio-cultural circumstances that are reproduced by educational systems and school-textbooks. Using the content analysis technique, this article highlights the main patterns and characteristics of women's employment represented in the textbooks of three levels of the Iranian schools: primary, intermediate, and high schools. In general, the results of this study show that the traditional pattern of gender roles inside and outside the home and the male breadwinner model (McDonald 2000) has been evidently represented in the textbooks. According to the results, there are two other key characteristics for women's employment. First, working women are represented in very limited types of work. Second, they often deal with their same-sex clients. Finally, the results show that these patterns vary partly in terms of the title of the textbooks and the three levels of schools