‘Gendering’ the text through implicit citations of gendered discourses
the construction of gender and teacher talk around children’s fiction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34847Keywords:
teachers, children’s fiction, gender, feminist post-structural theory, teacher education, new york city elementary schoolsAbstract
This study departs from the overriding focus on textbooks, which disregards how readers take them up. Informed by feminist post-structural theory, I analyse the construction of gender in children's fiction texts used in a New York City elementary school. First, I demonstrate that while the children's fiction texts were explicitly female dominated and/or progressive in their construction of gender, a feminist post-structural discourse reading illuminated that they in fact, implicitly cited discourses, which maintained gendered binary constructions and male dominance. Second, in going beyond the text, the study demonstrates that far from ignoring gender to focus on the 'official' curriculum as explicitly affirmed by the teachers, they had in fact implicitly and inadvertently cited, invoked and deployed discourses and discursive practices that inscribed gender differential and hierarchical relations in the use of the texts in the classroom. Third, I provide insights into teachers' lack of awareness regarding how gender is cited in their texts, and enacted in their teaching practices. I argue therefore that this 'talk around the text', which illuminated gendered discourses and practices, is, as well articulated by Jane Sunderland, 'an excellent epistemological site' for the deconstruction of traditionally gendered positions in the classroom.
References
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Allwright, R. and Bailey, K. (1991) Focus on the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ansary, H. and Babaii, E. (2003) Subliminal sexism in current ESL/EFL textbooks. Asian EFL Journal, 5.
Apple, M. W. and Christian-Smith, C. (eds) (1991) The Politics of the Textbook. New York: Routledge.
Bag, E. and Bayyurt, Y. (2015) Gender representation in EFL textbooks in Turkey. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 64–85.
Barton, A. and Sakwa, N. L. (2012) The representation of gender in English textbooks in Uganda. Pedagogy, Culture and Society 20(2): 173–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2012.669394
Baxter, J. A. (2008) Feminist Post-structuralist discourse analysis: a new theoretical and methodological approach. In K. Harrington, L. Litosseliti, H. Sauntson and J. Sunderland (eds) Gender and Language Research Methodologies 243–55. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bayyurt, Y. and Litosseliti, L. (eds) (2006) Gender and Language in Education. London: Hodder Arnold.
Cannon, J. (1993) Stellaluna. New York: Harcourt.
Connell, R. W. (2008) Gender (2nd edition). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Davies, B. (1989) The discursive production of the male/female dualism in school settings. Oxford Review of Education 15(3): 229–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305498890150304
Davies, B. (2003) Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales: Preschool Children and Gender. Cresskill, NJ: USA: Hampton Press.
DePaola, T. (1975) Strega Nona. New York: Aladin Paperbacks.
Dominguez, L. M. (2003) Gender Textbook Evaluation: English Language Studies. Birmingham: Department of English, University of Birmingham.
Eliot, L. (2010) The myth of pink and blue brains. Educational Leadership 68: 32–36.
Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I. and Shaw, L. L. (2011) Writing Ethnographic Field Notes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226206868.001.0001
Eslami, Z. R., Sonnenburg, S., Ko, W., Hasan, F. and Tong, F. (2015) Gender stereotyping and linguistic sexism in Qatari teaching materials. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 86–102.
Fisher, E. (1970) The second sex, junior division. New York Times, 24 May: 6.
Foulds, K. (2013) The continua of identities in postcolonial curricula: Kenyan students’ perceptions of gender in school textbooks. International Journal of Educational Development 33(2): 165–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2012.03.005
Foulds, K. (2014) Buzzwords at play: gender, education, and political participation in Kenya. Gender and Education 26(6): 653–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2014.933190
Francis, B. (1998) Power Plays: Primary School Children’s Constructions of Gender, Power and Adult Work. London: Trentham Books.
Gupta, A. F. and Yin, A. L. S. (1990) Gender representation in English language textbooks used in Singapore schools. Language and Education 4: 25–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500789009541271
Harris, A. (2004) Future Girl: Young Women in the 21st Century. New York: Routledge
Hartman, P. L. and Judd, E. L. (1978) Sexism and TESOL materials. TESOL Quarterly 12: 383–93. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586137
Hideto, D. H. (2004) Sexual bias in an EFL Textbook: a case study. In K. Bradford, C. Ikeguchi and M. Swanson (eds) JALT 105–1011. Tokyo.
Johansson, S. and Malmsjo, K. B. (2009) Gender bias in EFL textbook dialogues. Retrieved on 28 February 2019 from www.essays.se/essay/21eeb5e190.
Jones, M. A., Kitetu, C. and Sunderland, J. (1997) Discourse roles, gender and language textbook dialogues: who learns what from John and Sally? Gender and Education 9(4): 469–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540259721204
Jule, A. (2002) Speaking their sex: a study of gender and linguistic space in an ESL classroom. TESL Canada Journal/ Revue TESL du Canada 19(2): 37–51. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v19i2.928
Kelly, A. (1998) Gender differences in teacher pupil interaction: a meta-analytic review. Research in Education 39: 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/003452378803900101
Lee, J. F. and Collins, P. (2009) Gender voices in Hong Kong English textbooks: past and current practices. Sex Roles 59: 127–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9414-6
Lee, J. and Collins, P. (2015) Gender representation in Hong Kong primary English-language textbooks: a corpus study. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 37–49.
LeMaster, B. and Hernandez-Katapodis, M. (2002) Learning to play school: the role of topic in gendered discourse roles among preschoolers. In S. Benor, M. Rose, D. Sharma, J. Sweetland and Q. Zhang (eds) Gendered Practices in Language 213–36. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Maynard, S., Mackay, S. and Smyth, F. (2008) A survey of young people’s reading: thinking about fiction. New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship 14(1): 45–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614540802170379
Mills, S. and Mustafa, A. S. (eds) (2015) Gender Representation in Learning Materials: International Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Moore, E. (2015) Gender socialisation through literacy texts: a study of two folk tales used in a Russian preschool. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 164–92.
Munsch, R. (1980) The Paper Bag Princess. Toronto: Annick Press.
Mustafa, A. S. (2015) Gender positioning through visual images in English language textbooks in Nigeria. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 150–63.
Namatende-Sakwa, L. (2018) The construction of gender in Ugandan English textbooks: a focus on gendered discourses. Pedagogy, Culture and Society 26(4): 609–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2018.1436583
Paechter, C. (2007) Being Boys, Being Girls: Learning Masculinities and Femininities. New York: Open University Press.
Pawelczyk, J. and Pakuta, L. (2015) Constructing gender and sexuality in the EFL classroom in Poland: textbook construction and classroom negotiation. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 193–211.
Peterson, S. B. and Kronet, T. (1992) Gender bias in textbooks for introductory psychology and human development. Psychology of Women Quarterly 16: 17–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1992.tb00237.x
Pihlaja, S. (2007) Would you like to dance with me, Miwa? Gender roles and the EFL text. The Linguist List 16: 2–11.
Porecca, K. L. (1984) Sexism in current ESL textbooks. TESOL Quarterly 18: 705–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586584
Rapley, T. (2004) Interviews. In C. Seale, G. G. and, J. F. Gubrium and D. Silverman (eds) Qualitative Research Practice 15–33. London: Sage Publications.
Reagan, T. (2002) Toward an ‘archeology of deafness’: etic and emic constructions of identity in conflict. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 1(1): 41–66. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327701JLIE0101_4
Rifkin, B. (1998) Gender representation in foreign language textbooks: case study of textbooks of Russian. The Modern Language Journal 82: 217–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1998.tb01195.x
Sunderland, J. (2000a) Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education. LangTeach 33: 203–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444800015688
Sunderland, J. (2000b) New understandings of gender and language classroom research: texts, teacher talk and student talk. Language Teaching Research 4(2): 149–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/136216880000400204
Sunderland, J. (2004) Gendered Discourses. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sunderland, J. (2011) Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505582
Sunderland, J. (2013) ‘We’re boys, miss!’ Finding gendered identities and looking for gendering of identities in the foreign language classroom In S. Mills (ed.) Language and Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (vol. 3) 150–60. London: Routledge.
Sunderland, J. (2015) Gender representation in foreign language textbooks: avoiding pitfalls and moving on. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 19–34.
Sunderland, J., Cowley, M., Rahim, F. A., Leontzakou, C. and Shattuck, J. (2001) From bias ‘in the text’ to ‘teacher talk around the text’: an exploration of teacher discourse and gendered foreign language textbook texts. Linguistics and Education 11(3): 251–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0898-5898(00)00034-6
Sunderland, J. and Kitetu, C. (2000) Gendered discourses in the classroom: the importance of cultural diversity. In A. Yamashiro (ed.) Temple University of Japan Working Papers in Applied Linguistics (vol. 17) 26–40. Japan: Temple University.
Sunderland, J. and McGlashan, M. (2011) Stories featuring two-mum and two-dad families. In J. Sunderland (ed.) Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction 142–72. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Tainio, L. and Karvonen, U. (2015) Finnish teachers exploring gender bias in school textbooks. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 125–49.
Taubman, P. (2009) Teaching by Numbers: Deconstructing the Discourse of Standards and Accountability in Education. New York: Routledge.
Thorne, B. (1993) Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Walkerdine, V. (1984) Some day my prince will come. In A. McRobbie and M. Nava (eds) Gender and Generation 162–84. London: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17661-8_7
Weedon, C. (1997) Feminist Practice and Poststructural Theory (2nd edition). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
White, E. B. (1952) Charlotte’s Web. New York: Harper and Bros.
Willeke, A. and Sanders, R. (1978) Walter ist intelligent und Brigitte ist blond: dealing with sex bias in language texts. Unterrichtspraxis 11: 60–65. https://doi.org/10.2307/3529212
Wood, L. A. and Kroger, R. O. (2000). Doing Discourse Analysis: Methods for Studying Action in Talk and Text. London: Sage Publications.
Youdell, D. (2006) Impossible Bodies, Impossible Selves: Exclusions and Student Subjectivities. Dordrecht: Springer.
Younger, M. and Warrington, M. (2005) Raising Boys’ Achievement in Secondary Schools: Issues, Dilemmas and Opportunities. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Allwright, R. and Bailey, K. (1991) Focus on the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ansary, H. and Babaii, E. (2003) Subliminal sexism in current ESL/EFL textbooks. Asian EFL Journal, 5.
Apple, M. W. and Christian-Smith, C. (eds) (1991) The Politics of the Textbook. New York: Routledge.
Bag, E. and Bayyurt, Y. (2015) Gender representation in EFL textbooks in Turkey. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 64–85.
Barton, A. and Sakwa, N. L. (2012) The representation of gender in English textbooks in Uganda. Pedagogy, Culture and Society 20(2): 173–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2012.669394
Baxter, J. A. (2008) Feminist Post-structuralist discourse analysis: a new theoretical and methodological approach. In K. Harrington, L. Litosseliti, H. Sauntson and J. Sunderland (eds) Gender and Language Research Methodologies 243–55. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bayyurt, Y. and Litosseliti, L. (eds) (2006) Gender and Language in Education. London: Hodder Arnold.
Cannon, J. (1993) Stellaluna. New York: Harcourt.
Connell, R. W. (2008) Gender (2nd edition). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Davies, B. (1989) The discursive production of the male/female dualism in school settings. Oxford Review of Education 15(3): 229–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305498890150304
Davies, B. (2003) Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales: Preschool Children and Gender. Cresskill, NJ: USA: Hampton Press.
DePaola, T. (1975) Strega Nona. New York: Aladin Paperbacks.
Dominguez, L. M. (2003) Gender Textbook Evaluation: English Language Studies. Birmingham: Department of English, University of Birmingham.
Eliot, L. (2010) The myth of pink and blue brains. Educational Leadership 68: 32–36.
Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I. and Shaw, L. L. (2011) Writing Ethnographic Field Notes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226206868.001.0001
Eslami, Z. R., Sonnenburg, S., Ko, W., Hasan, F. and Tong, F. (2015) Gender stereotyping and linguistic sexism in Qatari teaching materials. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 86–102.
Fisher, E. (1970) The second sex, junior division. New York Times, 24 May: 6.
Foulds, K. (2013) The continua of identities in postcolonial curricula: Kenyan students’ perceptions of gender in school textbooks. International Journal of Educational Development 33(2): 165–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2012.03.005
Foulds, K. (2014) Buzzwords at play: gender, education, and political participation in Kenya. Gender and Education 26(6): 653–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2014.933190
Francis, B. (1998) Power Plays: Primary School Children’s Constructions of Gender, Power and Adult Work. London: Trentham Books.
Gupta, A. F. and Yin, A. L. S. (1990) Gender representation in English language textbooks used in Singapore schools. Language and Education 4: 25–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500789009541271
Harris, A. (2004) Future Girl: Young Women in the 21st Century. New York: Routledge
Hartman, P. L. and Judd, E. L. (1978) Sexism and TESOL materials. TESOL Quarterly 12: 383–93. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586137
Hideto, D. H. (2004) Sexual bias in an EFL Textbook: a case study. In K. Bradford, C. Ikeguchi and M. Swanson (eds) JALT 105–1011. Tokyo.
Johansson, S. and Malmsjo, K. B. (2009) Gender bias in EFL textbook dialogues. Retrieved on 28 February 2019 from www.essays.se/essay/21eeb5e190.
Jones, M. A., Kitetu, C. and Sunderland, J. (1997) Discourse roles, gender and language textbook dialogues: who learns what from John and Sally? Gender and Education 9(4): 469–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540259721204
Jule, A. (2002) Speaking their sex: a study of gender and linguistic space in an ESL classroom. TESL Canada Journal/ Revue TESL du Canada 19(2): 37–51. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v19i2.928
Kelly, A. (1998) Gender differences in teacher pupil interaction: a meta-analytic review. Research in Education 39: 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/003452378803900101
Lee, J. F. and Collins, P. (2009) Gender voices in Hong Kong English textbooks: past and current practices. Sex Roles 59: 127–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9414-6
Lee, J. and Collins, P. (2015) Gender representation in Hong Kong primary English-language textbooks: a corpus study. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 37–49.
LeMaster, B. and Hernandez-Katapodis, M. (2002) Learning to play school: the role of topic in gendered discourse roles among preschoolers. In S. Benor, M. Rose, D. Sharma, J. Sweetland and Q. Zhang (eds) Gendered Practices in Language 213–36. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Maynard, S., Mackay, S. and Smyth, F. (2008) A survey of young people’s reading: thinking about fiction. New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship 14(1): 45–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614540802170379
Mills, S. and Mustafa, A. S. (eds) (2015) Gender Representation in Learning Materials: International Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Moore, E. (2015) Gender socialisation through literacy texts: a study of two folk tales used in a Russian preschool. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 164–92.
Munsch, R. (1980) The Paper Bag Princess. Toronto: Annick Press.
Mustafa, A. S. (2015) Gender positioning through visual images in English language textbooks in Nigeria. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 150–63.
Namatende-Sakwa, L. (2018) The construction of gender in Ugandan English textbooks: a focus on gendered discourses. Pedagogy, Culture and Society 26(4): 609–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2018.1436583
Paechter, C. (2007) Being Boys, Being Girls: Learning Masculinities and Femininities. New York: Open University Press.
Pawelczyk, J. and Pakuta, L. (2015) Constructing gender and sexuality in the EFL classroom in Poland: textbook construction and classroom negotiation. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 193–211.
Peterson, S. B. and Kronet, T. (1992) Gender bias in textbooks for introductory psychology and human development. Psychology of Women Quarterly 16: 17–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1992.tb00237.x
Pihlaja, S. (2007) Would you like to dance with me, Miwa? Gender roles and the EFL text. The Linguist List 16: 2–11.
Porecca, K. L. (1984) Sexism in current ESL textbooks. TESOL Quarterly 18: 705–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586584
Rapley, T. (2004) Interviews. In C. Seale, G. G. and, J. F. Gubrium and D. Silverman (eds) Qualitative Research Practice 15–33. London: Sage Publications.
Reagan, T. (2002) Toward an ‘archeology of deafness’: etic and emic constructions of identity in conflict. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 1(1): 41–66. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327701JLIE0101_4
Rifkin, B. (1998) Gender representation in foreign language textbooks: case study of textbooks of Russian. The Modern Language Journal 82: 217–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1998.tb01195.x
Sunderland, J. (2000a) Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education. LangTeach 33: 203–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444800015688
Sunderland, J. (2000b) New understandings of gender and language classroom research: texts, teacher talk and student talk. Language Teaching Research 4(2): 149–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/136216880000400204
Sunderland, J. (2004) Gendered Discourses. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sunderland, J. (2011) Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505582
Sunderland, J. (2013) ‘We’re boys, miss!’ Finding gendered identities and looking for gendering of identities in the foreign language classroom In S. Mills (ed.) Language and Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (vol. 3) 150–60. London: Routledge.
Sunderland, J. (2015) Gender representation in foreign language textbooks: avoiding pitfalls and moving on. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 19–34.
Sunderland, J., Cowley, M., Rahim, F. A., Leontzakou, C. and Shattuck, J. (2001) From bias ‘in the text’ to ‘teacher talk around the text’: an exploration of teacher discourse and gendered foreign language textbook texts. Linguistics and Education 11(3): 251–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0898-5898(00)00034-6
Sunderland, J. and Kitetu, C. (2000) Gendered discourses in the classroom: the importance of cultural diversity. In A. Yamashiro (ed.) Temple University of Japan Working Papers in Applied Linguistics (vol. 17) 26–40. Japan: Temple University.
Sunderland, J. and McGlashan, M. (2011) Stories featuring two-mum and two-dad families. In J. Sunderland (ed.) Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction 142–72. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Tainio, L. and Karvonen, U. (2015) Finnish teachers exploring gender bias in school textbooks. In Mills and Mustafa (2015): 125–49.
Taubman, P. (2009) Teaching by Numbers: Deconstructing the Discourse of Standards and Accountability in Education. New York: Routledge.
Thorne, B. (1993) Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Walkerdine, V. (1984) Some day my prince will come. In A. McRobbie and M. Nava (eds) Gender and Generation 162–84. London: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17661-8_7
Weedon, C. (1997) Feminist Practice and Poststructural Theory (2nd edition). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
White, E. B. (1952) Charlotte’s Web. New York: Harper and Bros.
Willeke, A. and Sanders, R. (1978) Walter ist intelligent und Brigitte ist blond: dealing with sex bias in language texts. Unterrichtspraxis 11: 60–65. https://doi.org/10.2307/3529212
Wood, L. A. and Kroger, R. O. (2000). Doing Discourse Analysis: Methods for Studying Action in Talk and Text. London: Sage Publications.
Youdell, D. (2006) Impossible Bodies, Impossible Selves: Exclusions and Student Subjectivities. Dordrecht: Springer.
Younger, M. and Warrington, M. (2005) Raising Boys’ Achievement in Secondary Schools: Issues, Dilemmas and Opportunities. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Published
2019-04-08
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Namatende-Sakwa, L. (2019). ‘Gendering’ the text through implicit citations of gendered discourses: the construction of gender and teacher talk around children’s fiction. Gender and Language, 13(1), 72-93. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34847
