AVA2_MATHEUS SERGIO OLIVEIRA MANCHESTER_MÉTODOS E ABORDAGENS DO ENSINO DA LÍNGUA INGLESA

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UNIVERSIDADE VEIGA DE ALMEIDA
GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS - PORTUGUÊS E INGLÊS
MATHEUS SERGIO OLIVEIRA MANCHESTER
ANALYZING COURSEBOOKS
RIO DE JANEIRO
2022
According to the PNC document, materials should include cross-cutting themes
in its activities and exercises and gender is one of them. As Stockdale (2016, p. 1)
states, it is to be expected that coursebooks represent both men and women equally. For
that reason, I have chosen to analyze Unit 2 out of the three possible units as far as
gender representation is concerned.
Gender representation in textbook materials is a hotly debated topic all around
the world; Iranian researchers Bahman and Rahimi (2010) have conducted a similar
experiment and found that there is a big gap when it comes to male-female
representation. A similar study will be carried out in this paper, where concepts such as
visibility, firstness, nouns and pronouns and discourse roles will be analyzed. For a
thorough explanation on what these concepts are, read Stockdale (2016. p. 2-4). While
these elements are a promising first step, the added element of context will also be
present in this analysis: are females in positions of power and are they portrayed
positively? These are questions this paper will attempt to answer.
Right off the bat, on page 10 is a picture of a boy playing a sports game as a way
to introduce the theme the unit was built around: learning about games. This ties into
the concept of firstness, where the very first gender represented in the textbook is a
male. There is mixed-gender interaction on page 11, where a man and a woman can be
seen playing volleyball and the woman has the spotlight.
Gender representation is next found on page 13, where the benefits of playing
video games is discussed. In the picture, there are three kids depicted and all of them are
male. This seems to be a discouraging start for female students who like video games or
that are interested in getting into the gaming world. This should not come as a surprise:
women make up 46% of the gaming community (BOSMAN, 2019).
Gaming, in general, is a toxic environment in and of itself; in fact, 89,9% of
male gamers have reported they have experienced some sort of toxicity while 81,4% of
female gamers have stated the same (BERGSTRÖM e ERICSSON, 2020). However,
the toxicity stems from different motivations, where female-targeted insults mostly are,
in its very nature, related to gender roles (GERIC, 2020). Naturally, it has its
consequences: 59% of women hide their gender online for fear of getting harrassed
(NIGHTINGALE, 2021).
Moving on to page 14, there is a screenshot of a game titled “Ayiti: the Cost of
Life”. While the racial representation is on point, females are once again relegated to
being background characters. Out of 5 characters, only 2 are female and they are not in
the center, thus giving the male representation more emphasis.
The first gendered sentence makes its appearance on page 18 where students
will go over idioms with the word “play”. In the very first exercise, it can be read
“Because he refused to play ball with the coach of his team, he was cut from the
national team”. Once again the concept of firstness comes into play where the first use
of a gendered pronoun was the male one.
An uptick in female representation can be found on page 19. In a conversation
between Carol and Fred, not only is Carol the first one to speak, but she also has more
lines than Fred and is in a position of power, where she goes over the rules of the game
they are about to play, thus empowering female students.
On page 20, out of 8 sentences with gendered nouns and pronouns, half of them
have female nouns and pronouns. Renata is the first noun mentioned in “Renata and
Christian are speaking/talking about the app” and there is also a woman in a position of
power in “My manager said she wants to speak to me after the meeting”.
On page 21, there is a picture of a young female tennis player smack dab in the
middle. While this might be interpreted as an improvement at first glance, the girl does
not display positive emotions; she is, in fact, crying, and the picture makes reference to
the sentence right above it that says, “There are many reasons why she lost. In the first
place, she didn’t know how to play the game”. The female representation comes at the
high cost of having a female figure in a disadvantageous context.
The previous portrayal of females seems to track with what happens on page 22,
where Liz, the first character in the conversation, is talking to her friend Sam about
video games. While Sam might be a gender-neutral nickname, most Brazilian
Portuguese speakers are probably unaware of the fact that Sam is also short for
Samantha and will more readily think of Sam as short for Samuel, thus interpreting him
as a boy. In the conversation, Liz states she knows nothing about games and is promptly
invited by Sam to come over to Fred’s house so they can teach her how to play. Despite
the amicable environment where a male friend is happy to help his female friend, girls
are once again portrayed as being outsiders as far as the gaming community is
concerned.
Gendered representation comes to an end on page 23, where in a listening
exercise three people talk about a game and two have male-presenting names and the
only female-presenting names comes dead last.
Overall, the net result should be classified as negative. As much as there is
female representation, not only when it comes to pronouns but also in positions of
power, and firstness seems to be balanced equally between men and women, the
textbook does nothing to dispel the myth that women do not belong in gaming
communities.
All portrayals of the community outright excluded women where they were
either not even present or did not have enough knowledge to properly hold a
conversation about gaming. Female students will most likely walk out of the class with
the notion that gaming spaces are wholly unsafe for them and that it will probably
remain male-centered when this could not be farther from the truth. There is a lot of
work to be done when it comes to gendered toxicity and female inclusiveness in gaming
communities but female gamers making up almost half of the community is a number
that should not be ignored.
In conclusion, gender representation is not restricted to whether female pronouns
are mentioned first or whether females have a protagonist role in pictures, but it should
also portray women in different spaces where they can actively participate, thus
bringing about social change.
REFERENCES
BAHMAN, Masoumeh; RAHIMI, Ali. Gender representation in EFL materials: an
analysis of English textbooks of Iranian high schools. In: Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier: Volume 9, p. 273-277, 2010.
BERGSTRÖM, Hampus; ERICSSON, Niklas. How toxicity differs between male and
female players in competitive Overwatch. Bachelor’s thesis in Game Design. Faculty
of Department of Game Design. Uppsala Universitet. 2020.
BOSMAN, Sander. Women Account for 46% of All Game Enthusiasts: Watching Game
Video Content and Esports Has Changed How Women and Men Alike Engage with
Games. Newzoo. 2019. Available at:
<https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/women-account-for-46-of-all-game-enthusiasts-w
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GERRIC, Angela. Addressing the Toxicity Towards Women in Gaming. Seasoned
Gaming. 2020. Available at:
<https://seasonedgaming.com/2020/09/30/addressing-the-toxicity-towards-women-in-ga
ming/>. Accessed on March 29, 2021.
NIGHTINGALE, Ed. Worrying survey finds 59% of women hide gender when gaming
to avoid abuse and sexual harassment. Yahoo!. 2021 Available at:
<https://uk.style.yahoo.com/worrying-survey-finds-59-women-172216525.html>.
Accessed on March 29, 2021.
STOCKDALE, Ashley. Gender Representation in an EFL Textbook. Schoolof
Humanities of the University of Birmingham. 2006.
https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/women-account-for-46-of-all-game-enthusiasts-watching-game-video-content-and-esports-has-changed-how-women-and-men-alike-engage-with-games/
https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/women-account-for-46-of-all-game-enthusiasts-watching-game-video-content-and-esports-has-changed-how-women-and-men-alike-engage-with-games/
https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/women-account-for-46-of-all-game-enthusiasts-watching-game-video-content-and-esports-has-changed-how-women-and-men-alike-engage-with-games/
https://seasonedgaming.com/2020/09/30/addressing-the-toxicity-towards-women-in-gaming/
https://seasonedgaming.com/2020/09/30/addressing-the-toxicity-towards-women-in-gaming/
https://uk.style.yahoo.com/worrying-survey-finds-59-women-172216525.html