A Content Analysis of Student Characters in Educational Psychology Textbooks

Gender bias is defined to be the preconceived notion about the abilities of women and men that prevent individuals from pursuing their own interests and achieving their potential (Best 2010; UNICEF 2010). Title IX of the Education Amendment Act of 1972, states that gender discrimination became illegal in schools with the consequence that the act shall eliminate or reduce gender bias in educational material ( Evans and Davis, 2000) This article is about gender stereotyping in textbooks through pictures and texts(Yanowitz& Weathers). The article depicts how the male species are often perceived to have negative masculine traits and hold aggression more often than women.

They were then characterized to participate in masculine activities, whereas, the women are shown to be subtle and gentle. The authors studied researchers’ who focused their studies on gender stereotypes in preschool, elementary and college level educational psychology textbooks. The findings from the preschool and elementary study found that there was evidence in gender stereotyped where males were portrayed in more educational and career roles.

While women was caring, attentive with children and had less career objectives. Next, the researcher examined college level introductory psychology textbooks to aid in their research for student characters, personality characteristics, activity categories and training and reliability. The books were gathered from well known publishing companies, which were the top selling undergraduate psychology textbooks. The researchers explained that the books were going to be used for research but little information was given. The researchers were interested in how males and females were depicted in these books, so they gathered male and females to conducts surveys and analysis.

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The authors found that there were gender bias with males and females being portrayed in a stereotyped manner, however, finding showed that there breaking in gender bias. It was concluded that there is no different in males and females in their educational experiences with them being provided the same lecture, teacher, and use of materials. However, there is gender bias with males being identified as more masculine and aggressive while females were passive and soft.

This article is important to because it shines insight on how individuals are portrayed. It explained on different levels from preschool to high school how gender bias is being introduced in textbooks to individuals. The article explained how books were portraying individuals in this stereotyped manner. Male were been seen as the bread winner, hardworking provider while females where seen as caregivers. In the social work field, it is important to treat indidvuals equally. A part of social workers mission is to empower, encourage, and enhance the well being of others. Social workers are constantly advocating for equity and change for citizens because it is important that all students have equal accessibility regardless of their sex. It is essential that social workers keep in mind that gender stereotyped issues will continue unless parents are educated and willing to fight for their future. The article provides details on how progress has been made along with improvements but there continue to be bias issues. Social workers need to know that the media as well as books plays a vital role in influencing students career choices. With this article, social workers needed to be made aware of individual’s roles identification and ways that they can aid in broking those barriers. The article was also important because social workers want to believe that everything is equal but there is still discrimination that exists.

I think that the article made a very good argument about males being portrayed as the authoritative and a provider. Well, I think that years ago, males and female were labeled as to what were their positions to play. I feel that the images of males and females have drastically changed. There are more single and self reliant women that can perform any duty that a man can. There are even several self help television shows that encourage many to do it yourself. Even with my career, as a case manager, there are starting to be more male interested in this field. As a case manager, I maintain a mixed caseload of 50 individuals being girls and boys from preschool age to high school age. I work closely with them to create goals that are fit to their lifestyle. | work diligently to empower my clients that anything is possible if you apply yourself. It is important that I continue to work with individuals to help them understand that barriers are being broken daily. For example, many consider football, baseball, wrestling, racing and other rough sports to be for males. As for women, many think that dancing, skating, and soccer should be activities for women. As years pass, more women are starting to show more interest in male sports.

With this knowledge, I clearly understand why many individuals believe that they have a set goal instead of following their heart. The media and books are major factors in people preference in things. So, it is important for me to know this so that I can help and explain too many that things are available but you must seek them. While reading, I wonder why did authors start so early in preschool books stereotyping individuals. All in all, I learned that even with improvements there continues to be gender stereotyped manner displayed from textbooks to the classroom. I plan to use information from this article to educate my parents about gender bias and ways to handle it.