Textbook and gender : A qualitative study of textbook descriptions of gender in the religions of Islam and Hinduism

The purpose of this paper is to examine how gender in Islam and Hinduism are described in textbooks for high school. The study was conducted using a qualitative content analysis and also using a feminist gender theory and postcolonial feminist theory. All textbooks are written or revised after 2011 when The Swedish National Agency for Educations’ new curriculum came into force. Previous research in this area shows that it is most common that gender is treated in isolated parts within the chapters, but that there are textbooks that allows the gender perspective permeate the entire text. It also shows that the male perspective has been allowed to become the starting point or the neutral perspective in religion, while the female perspective has been described as the exception. In this paper the results shows that some textbooks describe gender in isolated sections of the chapters and other textbooks let the gender perspective permeates entire chapters. The textbook authors are in most cases consistent with explaining the different gender aspects based on other factors, such as traditions and geographical areas. However, there are exceptions where gender is not connected to external factors. There are descriptions in which the female is described on the basis of the male, just like the results of previous research. The discussion may need not only be about what is written about gender in textbooks, but also how it is presented in them