Gender Representation in EFL Textbooks of Bengkulu Junior High School

Abstract

The representation of gender in ELT textbooks has been the subject of many studies. Images are an important aspect of ELT textbooks and how they are represented from the author's point of view. The aims of this research were to investigate the male, female, and mixed characters were equally represented in the visuals of the textbook 1 and textbook 2 used in junior high school in Bengkulu and to investigate the male, female, and mixed roles depicted in terms of occupations in the textbooks. A mixed method was used in this research. Quantitative was used to calculate the frequency of male, female, and mixed characters while qualitative was used to describe the roles of each character depicted in terms of occupations in the textbooks. The result showed that there was no equivalent character representation in the two textbooks. In terms of illustration, males were the biggest frequent than females and mixed character. While in terms of photos, it was the same as the illustration. Similarly, roles were also described in the two textbooks. However, the role of males was more than females and mixed character. It can be concluded that male characters still dominated most frequently among female and mixed characters. There was no equality in gender representation in the two books.