Gender in Polish textbooks – findings and recommendations

Gender in Polish textbooks – findings and recommendations
Marta Mazurek
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Abstract
School textbooks and language used in educational contexts have long been considered
carriers of ideologies pertaining to gender and sexuality by academics both in Poland (e.g.
Kopciewicz, Zierkiewicz 2009, Chomczyńska-Rubacha 2011, Pankowska 2014, Pakuła et al.
2015) and abroad (e.g. Gray 2013, Mustapha and Mills 2015). Although a few research
projects focusing on gender- and sexuality-related representations in teaching/learning
materials have been carried out in Poland recently (e.g. Kochanowski et al. 2013, Rient et al.
2014), they have been rather limited in their selection of either school subjects, levels of
education, the methodologies applied or the number of (text)books analyzed.
The research project “Gender in Polish Textbooks” (2015) that I report on is the most
comprehensive and largest research study of textbooks carried out in Poland to date. It
includes quantitative and qualitative analyses of 228 textbooks, i.e. over 25% of the total
number of textbooks approved for school use by the Ministry of Education. The selection of
the analysed textbooks represents all subjects and all educational levels in different types of
Polish schools. The study aimed at, but was not limited to, critical analysis of models of
femininity and masculinity intersecting with other dimensions of identity (sexuality, age,
ethnicity, (dis)ability, economic status, religion), which are promoted by the Polish core
curriculum and textbooks. First, an interdisciplinary team of experts, researchers and scholars
(60 people altogether) developed a worksheet for quantitative analysis of characters (the basic
analytical category), of the language used, texts and accompanying illustrations featuring in
the analyzed textbooks. The worksheet contained 27 variables (e.g. social role performed,
active/passive, profession, character features described). Then they collected data concerning
25 293 analytical units. This was followed by statistical analysis (chi-square test was used
with Yates’s correction for continuity). Drawing on methods and insights of (feminist) critical
analysis and critical pedagogies (Chomczyńska-Rubacha – Rubacha 2015), the qualitative
analysis of the textbooks and the core curriculum aimed to answer a list of precise research
questions concerning e.g. the extent to which the curriculum and the textbooks represent and
promote equal participation of girls and boys, women and men in different types of activity in
different spheres of private and public life; whether they reflect the real-life physical and
mental diversity of boys, girls, women and men as well as their different social roles and
professions; whether and how the core curriculum and the textbooks refer to issues of gender,
sexuality, equality and discrimination. The research shows e.g. that quantitative gender
imbalance observed in the textbooks is related both to the educational level and the school
subject they are designed for. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses are
followed by lists of recommended good practice to be implemented by institutional
stakeholders. I intend to focus on presenting a number of solutions recommended by the
experts involved in the research study.
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