Sexist Textbooks

Lee Crawfurd, Christelle Saintis-Miller and Rory Todd
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Christelle Saintis-Miller: Center for Global Development
Rory Todd: Center for Global Development

No 678, Working Papers from Center for Global Development

Abstract: Textbooks play a critical role in schooling around the world. Small sample studies show that many books continue to under-represent women and girls, and to portray men and women in stereotypical gendered roles. In this paper, we use quantitative text analysis to assess the degree of gender bias in a newly assembled corpus of 1,255 English language school textbooks from 34 countries that are publicly available online. We find consistent patterns of under-representation of female characters and portrayal of stereotypical gendered roles. Women and girls occur less frequently, are portrayed as more passive, are less likely to be associated with work or achievement, and are more likely to be associated with the home and traditionally female occupations. Comparing across countries, female representation in books is correlated with higher GDP and more legal rights for women.

Keywords: Gender; Education; Textbooks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2024-02-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen and nep-lab
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cgd:wpaper:678

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