An analysis of primary school textbooks from a gender perspective

The present diploma thesis examines gender in Czech language textbooks for the second stage of the primary school. It aims to analyse three selected textbook series published by different publishing houses, using the results to evaluate whether or not individual textbooks depict men and women in a stereotypical manner whether there is discrimination on grounds of language. The thesis comprises a theoretical and empirical part. The theoretical part briefly introduces and delimits the concept of gender. It goes on to discuss selected aspects of linguistic gender discrimination, mainly the use of the generic masculine and inappropriate clichéd language. We also introduce the issue of deriving feminine forms of foreign female family names, which is topical at the time of writing. The final chapter of the theoretical part discusses the impact of gender bias in schooling on pupils'education. The empirical part analyses three textbook series, focussing on the representation of men and women in the subject matter, in illustrations, and on the use of gender-neutral language. The results of the analysis indicate that men prevail over women in all the textbooks analysed in several respects: namely in terms of the proportion of text excerpts authored by male or female authors; the number of illustrations..