Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
IX. Yıldız Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Kongresi, İstanbul, Türkiye, 26 - 27 Aralık 2022
Foreign language teaching in general has always been regarded as one of the most important tools in conveying social values to students in different cultures, understandings, customs, and thinking styles specific to that language. Gender roles are among these which are transmitted through foreign language teaching. In the literature, gender is determined by the transmission of the genetic code of the person while it is seen that gender role represents the duties, responsibilities, and perceptions of the individual by the society to which she or he belongs (Üner, 2008). However, with the great economic and technological developments in the world, there have been some changes in the roles attributed to genders by society. Especially with the participation of women in business life more than in the past and the increase in the level of education, the existing social roles labeled on men and women have changed dramatically. From this perspective, gender roles in the coursebooks used in English language teaching at all levels from the 2nd to the 12th grade, which are distributed free of charge by the Ministry of National Education, were examined through the subject of "occupations" in this research. Descriptive data analysis reveals that from 2nd to 7th grade, the pictures related to occupations in the coursebooks are preferred to be pictures of women 104 times and pictures of men 111 times, whereas from 7th to 12th grade, they show pictures of women 32 times and pictures of men 33 times. In terms of vocabulary, it can be seen that from 2nd to 12th grade, the coursebooks use generally gender-neutral words for occupations, but the most frequently used words after gender-neutrals are masculine ones. In a nutshell, when English coursebooks are analyzed in terms of gender roles, gender-neutral words are not preferred to name occupations, and on top of that, there is no equal distribution of picture selection for men and women. This research tries to describe the current situation in the English language coursebooks that are used by the Ministry of National Education.