Gender role and identity in the primary level language textbooks: a twenty-first century update

Abstract

He’ or ‘She’ all belong to the same species, whatever may the nomenclature. National Education Policy (NEP) -2010 initiated an applaudable attempt to go beyond any gender discrimination in the text books of the children learning language at primary level. An enquiry on the influences of these attempts is made in this study titled, ‘Gender Role and Identity in The Primary Level Language Textbooks: A Twenty-First Century Update’. The main focus of this research is to identify the depiction of gender identity and gender roles in the primary level Bangla language text books and the extent to which gender bias is reflected in the teaching-learning processes. This is a qualitative study. The study reveals that, in the current language text-books, the presence of pictures, nouns and pronouns for male and female are found pretty similar. A fear to talk about gender in general seemed to exist. The mindset appeared as a barrier on the way to achieving desired output from the changes of curriculum brought in by the Government of Bangladesh.