The hetronormativ discourse : An analysis of a teaching aid in English 5

The year 1990 Sweden stopped to screen schoolbooks and left the choice of literature to the schools. This may have influenced what is portrayed in student literature. This study was created to map out how gender is portrayed in English schoolbooks for the course of English 5. Gender is a social construct, created by society that explains to us how we are supposed to act based on the sex one was born with. Humans are always influenced by the environment and are assumed to behave a certain way. With the help of a discourse analysis, a student literature was analyzed with gender equality viewpoint on how men and women were portrayed in the literature. With the help of the analysis some concluding thoughts were made, that even though our society has evolved, some traditional norms are still in texts and influence readers, even though more modern aspects are portrayed throughout students’ literature.