S ING 0902336 Chapter5

(1)

Wina Anggraeni Lestari, 2014

GENDER REPRESENTATION IN STUDENTS’ CONVERSATIONS IN A TEXTBOOK FOR UNIVERSITY

STUDENTS

Univeristas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

This chapter is designed to present the conclusion of the gender representation study

of the textbook for university students. It also provides suggestion for future study on

gender representation in the textbook.

5.1 Conclusion

This research examines two research problems, i.e. (1) gender representation in the

textbook through Van Leeuwen’s (2008) classifications of the social actor elaborated

with the transitivity analysis, and (2) potential factors that affect the representation.It

is found that the social actorsarefrequently represented in inclusion rather than in

exclusion. It implies that the textbook represents females and males in explicit ways

when they are embedded to their actions and utterances. In terms of gender, males are

represented slightly more dominant because males’ occurrences in inclusion are more

frequent than female and mixed genders. The social actors are frequently represented

as an active and participatory human being because the most frequent inclusion

classification is Activation-Participation-Personalization. Males are represented

frequently in this classification.

In accordance with transitivity analysis, the social actors frequently play the

active role in Material process. The social actors are then represented as being active

in relation to physical activities. In terms of gender, the most frequent participant who

plays an active role in material process is mixed genders. It indicates that female and

(2)

STUDENTS

social actors also play the active role in Mental process. It means that the social actors

are represented as being active in relation to psychological activities.

According to the analysis result, Males tend to have dominant representation

in terms of inclusion analysis. Despite of that, males and females are represented

equally in terms of the active role in Material process. In some aspect, the textbook

shows efforts to avoid stereotyped representation. The author commented on this

gender representation proportion that it is the awareness of gender that shapes the

proportion of gender in the textbook. The author intentionally evoked students’ life

representation in order to fit to the reader target comprehension. Thus, the first factor

influences the representation is the authors’awareness of gender. The second factor is

that the students-centeredness. It evidenced in the focus point of the textbook to the

students’ daily life to be the processes attached to the social actors.

Based on the analysis above, it is found that the textbook shows dominant and

relatively equal proportion of gender representation in several aspect of

representation. The students-centeredness in the textbook then indicates the author’s

awareness of gender. Overall analysis, the textbook is trying to say that the

representation of gender should fit with the reader target condition. It would then

serve the reader target need of the textbook. Textbook should be made to create a

good learning condition and support students’ learning development.

5.2 Suggestion

There are some suggestions offered for future study on gender representation in

textbook. The present study utilized Van Leeuwen’s frame work of social actor

elaborated with Halliday’s transitivity analysis. Future studies may develop its

(3)

STUDENTS

form: dialogues. The data used in this study are solely taken from the dialogues text.

For future study, the data can be extended to any other kind of texts such as