1 Gender Bias: An analysis of Real Time for Junior High School Students year VII
By: Sari Novita Wibowo
Abstract
This study was conducted to describe the representation of gender in Real Time for Junior High School students year VII. Gender biased textbooks are harmful for students because of several reasons.First, unconciously sexism may offend the learners as unintended racism (O’Neill, 1994). Second, it may provide less opportunity for female/male in practicing the language in the dialog(s) if less female/male characters included (Cincotta, 1978). Qualitative analysis was used to perform content and linguistic analysis. This method analyses seven units in Real time for Junior High School students year VII which contains 17 grammar focuses, 7 reading texts, and 54 exercises following the grammar focuses and reading passages. The findings clearly indicates that there is a positive gender bias with females outnumbering males. Most pronouns, discourse roles, and visibility refer to females. However, female and male roles presented in the textbook represent a traditional stereotype of female and male in Indonesia.
Keywords: Gender bias, English textbook, Traditional stereotype of female and male in Indonesia
1. Introduction
Nowadays, English is widely used as a global language. As a result, many Non- English speaking countries require English subject to the schools. They need both teachers and textbooks to help them. Nevertheless, textbooks appear to be more helpful to study English. Sadker and Zittleman (2007) states students use at least 80 to 95 percent of their classroom time in using textbooks and teachers create their instructional decision according to textbooks. Otlowski (2003) also argues that the textbook is one of the essential media for EFL students who have limited interaction with native speakers because of its convincing use inside and outside the classroom as an instrument to understand language use better.
2 biased textbooks are harmful for students because of several reasons. First, unconciously sexism may offend the learners as unintended racism (O’Neill, 1994). Second, it may provide less opportunity for female/male in practicing the language in the dialog(s) if less female/male characters included (Cincotta, 1978). Therefore, teachers have to select an ideal textbook that does not present any gender biases both explicitly and implicitly and teachers need to be aware of it.
The present study is originated from a situation that the absence of understanding in gender bias concept in teaching material(s) exists. In the department where the study is situated, it is required to do teaching practicum to complete one of the graduated requirements. The teaching practicum students are sent to various schools and English education institutions. During the teaching practicum, they need to create and develop teaching material(s) based on textbooks used in schools. However, teaching practicum students may not be aware of the existence of gender bias in the textbook while developing and creating teaching material(s) based on textbooks.
Real Time for Junior High School students year VII is choosen to be analysed in this study beacuse it is currently being used at Christian Junior High School 2 Salatiga where my teaching practicum is done. Also, it is published in 2007 and can be considered more progressive in terms of gender. This English textbook is published by one of the well-known publishers in Indonesia named Erlangga and the curricula used is KTSP or Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan. However, this study is aimed to answer the following question;
How are the gender bias presented in Real Time for Junior High School students year VII ?
3 textbooks and to minimize gender bias in their material for teaching. This knowledge can help teachers and practicum students to choose ideal English textbooks.
2. Theoritical Framework
As it is known before, there are many studies focusing on gender bias in textbooks conducted by many researchers all over the world. They find some ways that can be used to measure the gender bias in textbooks:
2a Visibility
According to Stockdale’s study in an EFL textbook (2006), visibility principally refers to the appearance of female and male characters presented in textbooks. The findings of Stockdale’s study shows that the percentage of male characters is higher than female ones. Also, the female characters are named without an active role. Stockdale (2006) also says, because the number of females and males is almost equal in the world, an ideal textbook ought to present both gender equally. Nevertheless, Poulou’s study in EFL dialogues towards two Greek foreign language textbooks (1997) finds that visibility can be identified through:
The number of utterances and words used by female characters vs male
characters.
The length of talk between female and male characters.
The initation and closing moves in the dialogues by female vs male
characters.
The findings of Poulou’s study shows that the dialogues in those two EFL textbooks have more male characters and more words allocated to male characters. Mkucu (2004),who conducts the study about gender roles in textbooks used at Tanzania primary schools, adds that visibility can be recognized through:
Reproductive or maintanance activities: roles that are performed at home for
4 Productive activities: roles that are done to produce things and services for
earnings (e.g manufacturing and fishing).
Community roles: activities performed for general society well-being (e.g
attending meetings or funeral activities).
The result of Mkucu’s study shows that there are more male character appears than female ones in the textbooks he analysed. Therefore, the textbooks studied by the researchers above are considered as gender bias because it reflects a favoritsm towards males characters.
2b Firstness
Porecca (1984), in a study of sexism in ESL textbook currently finds that although there is no certain rule that female characters or male characters should be mentioned or put first before another character, the placement of a certain gender first when two nouns or pronouns presented as a pair can be interpreted as giving a higher status to the certain gender (e.g man and woman, mother and father). However, it is better to present word(s) or expression(s) as a pair equally frequently.
2c Nouns and Pronouns
The use of nouns and pronouns describing men and women can also reflect gender bias in textbooks. For example, Alrabaa’s study in Syrian Schools textbooks (1985) discovers that male-centered language was used according to his additional analysis on a textbook specifically, masculine nouns such as mankind, and the pronouns.
2d Discourse Roles
5 cause the role categorization based on gender is called stereotype gender (Parkay, 2008). For example, mother is cooking in the kitchen, and father goes to work. To put it simply, stereotype gender influences the discourse roles between female and male. Mkucu (2004) also says that behaviour, attitudes, interests, and skills that a culture considers appropriates for males and females, are expected to fulfill. For example, boys are supposed to play with trucks, girls to play with dolls.The girls should show their emotion and boys hide it. Boys are supposed to be aggressive and active, girls are supposed to be passive (Parkay, 2008). Mischel (1970) argues that exposure to traditional gender-typed symbolic models in children’s books,television, and movies play a role in the vicarious learning of such traditional gender role standards.
Due to the limited space, the limited time, and the difficultness, this study will only focus on pronouns, discourse roles, and visibility to analyze Real Time for Junior High School students year VII.
3. The Study
3a Context of the study
This study is to analyze the representation of gender bias in Real Time for Junior High School students year VII textbook which is used as an English teacher’s guide in Christian Junior High School 2, Salatiga.
3b Materials
This study studies only one English textbook entitled Real Time for Junior High School students year VII that uses KTSP curricula. KTSP stands for Kurikulum tingkat satuan
6 There are seven units consisted 20 listening and speaking activities, 7 written activities, 7 reading texts, 17 grammar focuses, 13 vocabularies, 7 projects, and 7 cultural notes. Due to the limited space, the focus of this study only includes 17 grammar focuses, 7 reading texts, and 53 exercises which are following the reading texts and grammar focuses. As it was noted before, this textbook is choosen to be analyzed because it is currently being used at Christian Junior High School 2 Salatiga. Also, it may be used at other junior high schools in Indonesia.
3c Data collection Instrument
This study collected the data from an English textbook entitled Real Time for Junior High School students year VII. The data was collected by analyzing content in language focus and reading passages. In analyzing the dialogues and the reading passage, every word and every line of Real Time for Junior High School students year VII were read and reread to see its content and later the content analysis in three categories, which are pronoun, discourse roles, and visibility,will be very helpful to make judgements about the textbook. The following table is provided to make the data collection more crystal clear:
Table 1
Example of content analysis in Real Time for Junior High School students year VII
Unit Input text Discourse Roles
2 My mother makes fried rice for
lunch. (exercise 1, page 31)
Making fried rice is a categorized role for
female. According to Suyanto and Astuti
(2010), a woman culturally is the one who
responsible for any household needs such as
meals. This text clearly represent a
traditional stereotypes of female in Indonesia.
4 My father washes his car every
Sunday (page 30)
Since women are only responsible for
household needs, washing a car is categorized
7 In this study it is not necessary to also analyze pictures in the textbook which are used as illustration, since analyzing the pictures will be too drudgery to cover in this study.
3d Procedures of data collection
The study used qualitative analysis since the data collected were in form of texts. It included several steps to collect the data. First, it is important to have a copy of Real Time for Junior High School students’ year VII. Second, the sentences in grammar section and reading texts were analysed quantitatively based on three categories which were pronouns, discourse role, and visibility. Having finished analyzing Real Time for Junior High School students’ year VII according those three categories, the findings discussion and the conclusion(s) were made.
4. Findings and Discussion
4a Gender Representation Through Pronouns
8 From figure 1, it can be seen that there is somewhat a gender balance between the use of pronoun for the male and female. This means the number of feminine pronouns appeared more or less equal compared to the masculine pronouns. The following is the example of feminine or masculine pronouns found in the textbook:
Text 1 Text 2
Examples of object pronouns: Examples of subject pronouns:
That dress is for me. I like reading books.
My parents will buy that video game for us. You are a student. What did you give her? I gave her flowers. She likes ice cream. I gave him the message yesterday. He is from Canada.
Did you meet them? They go to school.
I don’t like it. It is a letter.
(Real Timefor Junior High School Students year VII: Unit 1, page 15) Text 3
I’m late.
They see movies.
My father arrives on time. 54.3%
45.7%
0% 50% 100%
[image:8.612.104.491.72.287.2]Female Male
Figure 1: Pronouns in Real Time for Junior High School Students year VII
9 We don’t see her.
My bedroom is clean.
Do you go to the cinema on Sunday? The Smith take their children to the beach. I study hard.
My mother cooks in the kitchen. My sisters listens to the rock music.
(Real Timefor Junior High School Students year VII: Unit 4, page 69) In text 1 and text 2, the feminine pronouns (she and her) is equally presented with the masculine ones (he and him). On the other hand, text 3 shows that it is only the feminine pronoun (her) used in the text.
From the text 1, text 2, and text 3, it can be concluded that the use of feminine or masculine pronoun is more or less equal. There is some extent gender balance between feminine and masculine pronoun in Real Time for Junior High School students year VII .
4b Gender Representations Through Discourse Roles
10 reading texts in this textbook, so the figure below only displays the discourse role in the grammar section.
The figure 2 above shows that the number of the discourse roles in the grammar focus for the female is 62,5% and the male is 37,5%. It is obvious that the discourse role of female is higher than male ones. Most of the discourse role in this textbook are related in the family roles. Below there are some examples about the discourse role of male and female:
Text 4
Rachel : I sing a song every day. My father washes his car every Sunday. He likes to take care
a lot . My mother makes cookies every morning. She loves working in the kitchen.
My little sister drinks a glass of milk every day. She is a very healthy girl. We
are one small happy family.
Teacher : Really?
(Real Timefor Junior High School Students year VII: Unit 2, page 30)
From the examples above, it can be analyzed that text 4 contains some discourse roles 62.5%
37.5%
0% 50% 100%
[image:10.612.91.517.145.636.2]Female Male
Figure 2: Discourse Role in Real Time for Junior High School Students year VII
11 or some gendered-neutral roles. A Gender neutral role refers to roles that are not attached to gender (e.g: a nurse). A nurse can be no longer as a gender neutral role if the adjective female or male is added (e.g a female nurse or a male nurse).
First, Rachel tells about her father who washes the car every Sunday. Rachel’s father represents the role of a man in a family who take cares a lot of the car. A car itself unconciously has been labeled as a man thing in the society, especially in Indonesia. Therefore, washing a car is labeled as men’s occupational duty.
Second, she informs the activities of her mother. It is written that her mother makes cookies every morning. Rachel’s mother represents the role of a woman in family who loves working in the kitchen and makes cookies every morning. Kitchen and cookies are always attached to women in Indonesian culture, especially in Java. Besides dressing up herself and giving birth, people tend to exaggerate that one of women’s roles is cooking (Suyanto & Astuti, 2010).
Last, Rachel tells about her little sister who always drinks a glass of milk every day and she is a healthy girl. Drinking a glass of milk is considered as gender neutral because there is no certain categorization which only female and male can drink a glass of milk.
Interestingly, there are several texts that challenge the gender roles in the society. For example text 5 below about Rudy in Real Time for Junior High School students year VII:
Text 5
Rudi is a dilligent boy. He wakes up at five o’clock every morning. He makes his bed and prepares
himself to pray. It takes him about fifteen minutes to pray. When he finishes his prayers, his mother
asks him to help her in the kitchen. He usually helps his mother prepare the breakfast every morning.
He also helps his mother wash the dishes. His brothers Agus helps too. He sweeps the floor and
waters the plants. Agus does not do what his brother does. He helps his father polish the shoes every
12 drink a glass of milk and eat a piece of bread. At quarter to seven, they go to school. They go to
school by bus.
(Real Timefor Junior High School Students year VII: Unit 2, page 32)
Text 5 above challenges for the stereotypes roles in Indonesian society because Rudi is pictured quite different from the commonly male roles . It is said that Rudi is a dilligent boy. He wakes up at five o’clock every morning. It is totally different from the Indonesian society stereotypes which a boy or even a man is judged as lazy person. They never wake up early in the morning, but women are the ones who are dilligent and wake up early in the morning because they are responsible for household needs (Suyanto & Astuti, 2010).
Next sentence says, “he makes his bed and prepares himself to pray.” It is quite surprising to find a boy makes his bed. In Indonesia, a bedroom of a boy is usually messy which is vice versa with a girl’s bedroom because a bed is not the male’s area. It is also written that Rudi prepares himself to pray and it is also written “it takes him fifteen minutes to pray”, it may indicate that he is devoted to God. Even though praying is gender neutral, fifteen minutes praying is considered as a long time to pray and boys in general may not take so much time to pray. This one proves the challenging stereotypes role.
Other sentences state, “when he finishes his prayers, his mother asks him to help her in the kitchen. He usually helps his mother prepare the breakfast every morning. He also helps his mother wash the dishes.”As it was discussed before, all of the activities in the kitchen is related to women, especially in Indonesian society. Otherwise, Rudy’s mother seems to be fine to let her son help her in the kitchen, prepare breakfast, and wash the dishes. As it was noted before, cooking is attached to women roles in Indonesia (Suyanto & Astuti, 2010). This is quite contrary to the stereotyped roles in Indonesian society.
13 plants are done by females since one of their characteristic is caring. On the other hand, Agus not only helps his mother, but also helps his father polish the shoes. This one is not attached as female’s role, but male ones.
In conclusion, the qualitative analysis based on the discourse role in Real Time for Junior High School students year VII shows there is a gender bias found in this textbook. Although several texts in this textbook are challenging stereotype of men and women in Indonesia, which one of them is text 5, the number of stereotyping gender is still higher based on the content analysis. Most female and male are still categorized by their roles in family.
4c Gender Representation through Visibility
Last, this study discusses the visibility between female and male in Real Timefor Junior High School Students year VII. According to Poulou’s study (1997), visibility principally is the distribution of talk between female and male that can be seen through:
1. Frequency of character appearance 2. The length of talk
3. The number of utterances 4. The initation and closing moves
14 As it can be seen in figure 3, the visibility of female is higher than male ones. The followings are examples of visibility of female and male in Real Time for Junior High School Students year VII:
Text 6 Ani : Hi, I’m Ani
Sisca : Hi, I’m Sisca. Very nice to meet you.
Ani : Nice to meet you, too. Are you a student here? Sisca : No, I’m not, but my brother is.
Ani : Oh, what is his name? Sisca : His name is Riko.
Ani : I know Riko. He is in my English class. Sisca : Really?
Ani : Yes. Say hi to him for me, please. Sisca : Sure, I’ll tell him
Ani : Thank you.
(Real Timefor Junior High School students year VII, Unit 1, page 16) 66.7%
33.3%
0% 50% 100%
[image:14.612.92.516.322.609.2]Female Male
Figure 3: Visibility Between Female and Male in Real Time for Junior High School Students year VII
15 From text 6 above, the visibility belongs to female. It can be seen that there are two females (Ani and Sisca) involves in the conversation. Even though all of them more or less speak equally, Ani utters more words than Sisca. In addition, the initation of the dialog is started by Ani as well as the closing ones. A male appearance is also found in the conversation, but it cannot be counted as visibility of male because Riko is not one of the speakers in the conversation. He only appears as the topic conversation between Ani and Sisca.
Text 7 Tessa : What is your favorite month of the year? Sean : My favorite is December.
Tessa : Why?
Sean : Because it is cold and I can play with snow. Besides, it’s Christmas. What about you?
Tessa : My favorites are June and July. The weather is not too cold and not too hot. It’s perfect for playing outside.
(Real Timefor Junior High School students year VII, unit 4, page 63) As it can be identified from the text 7 above, the frequency of female (Tessa) and male (Sean) appearance in conversation is balance. The difference is Tessa (female) talks longer than Sean (male) as well as the utterances she said in the conversation. Also, the initation and closing in the conversation above are begun by Tessa (female). Therefore, the visibility in text 7 is possessed by female.
16 5. Conclusion
All the discussions in this study are aimed to understand how gender bias can be presented in textbooks and to minimize gender bias in teaching material for English teachers. Since there are many researchers conduct studies about gender bias in English textbooks, it is hoped that English textbooks today do not present gender biased material. The English textbook analyzed in this study is Real Time for Junior High School Students year VII. It is used in many Junior High Schools in Indonesia, such as in Salatiga. This textbook presents study examined by the existence of gender bias in three aspects: pronoun, discourse role, and visibility. The data is collected by analyzing 17 grammar sections and 7 reading texts in this textbook including any exercises related to both of them, which the total is 54 exercises.
The first findings in Real Time for Junior High School Students year VII is the number of pronouns is equally balanced between females and males. The qualitative analysis shows the feminine pronouns are little bit higher than masculine ones. They are seen to be equal in all of exercises and examples in grammar sections. By contrast, in the reading texts, pronouns are more refered to female ones. For example in page 17, there is a reading text that tells about a female public figure named Agnes Monica.
17 such as making his bed and helping his mother prepare breakfast. The character Rudi in text 5 may influence students’s prejudice about females and males role in the society, which is good for stopping sexism.
The last finding is there is gender misrepresentation in Real Time for Junior High School Students year VII through the visibility of females versus males ones. Females are presented to speak more in the mixed- gender conversation and they mostly initate and close dialog(s) (see text 7 page 63). It is such a discrimination influences both male and female learners in the developing ideology of these young students showing its negative effects later in their lives and triggering the battle between the sexes. One possible solution to avoid discrimination is making an attempt to depict the reality in the textbooks since the same procedure will have to be followed for all, say, the occupations, cities, and family members through a series of textbooks and the author will also have to consider the guidelines of the gender fair material development.
18 Acknowledgment
Many individuals have encouraged me with their irreplaceable supports, precious prayers, and valuable assistance. While it is not possible to mention all of them for their contributions in making my study successful, the followings deserve special acknowledgment.
First of all, I would like to thank my Saviour, my Lord, and my King, Jesus Christ. Thank you Lord for your everlasting love, perfect guidance, and uncountable blessing in my life. With you, impossible is nothing.
Second, my special gratitude goes to my supervisor Nugrahenny T. Zacharias, PhD and my thesis examiner Victoria Usadya Palupi, MA- ELT. They have given me appropriate assistance and great supports to complete this study successfully. Thank you so much for every second you gave to me.
Third, I would love to thank my parents for their priceless prayers, both financial and mental supports. I know I have the best father and mother in the world. I thank God for you two.
Next, a special gratitude would not be enough to my dearest husband, Hendy Kriestiyanto Adiyuwono. You are such a miracle that has ever happened in my life. Thank you for your never ending love and supports. Also, thank you for showing me the bitterness of being failed that makes me strong enough to be a winner. I love you so much.
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