Women and their (lack of) place in the canon: A study of canon formation and gender representation in 27 textbooks made for three curriculums

Abstract

This study examines whether there is a de facto canon in the text selection of 27 EFL textbooks for grades 8-10. The study also investigates gender representations and examines the extent to which both male and female authors are represented. The textbook selection consists of nine books for each of the three publishing houses: Aschehoug, Cappelen Damm, and Gyldendal. These textbooks are made for three different curriculum periods: Læreplanverket 1997 (L97), Kunnskapsløftet 2006 (LK06), and Kunnskapsløftet 2020, (LK20). These curriculums all specify the importance of a wide text selection, and that the text selection shall contribute to provide students with a broad competence about culture and understanding of the society that they live in (Ministry of Education and Research, 2019). Even though none of the curriculums specify that students shall read texts from both male and female authors, they still argue that students shall be exposed to texts from different viewpoints. The study used both quantitative and qualitative approaches through an explanatory sequential design. A content analysis was used to both collect and analyze the data material that was a convenience sample consisting of 27 textbooks. Findings from the study show that male authors are more represented than female authors. In addition, the division of male and female author representations in each of the tree publishing houses are quite similar. It is also visible that some authors are repeated throughout several textbooks, in multiple publishing houses, and in different curriculum periods. The findings at the same time show that the textbooks understand the term “text” widely by including a variation of genres. In conclusion, the findings in this study show that there are large differences in male and female authors’ representations in the textbooks and that there is a need for further research