Bodily Stereotypes in English Textbooks’ Images

Abstract

Education is the way to generate positive
conducts in children, conducts that promote
a social and harmonic environment
and respect of ethic and democratic values
in our society. One important ethic and
democratic value is the implementation
of non-discriminatory, non-prejudiced
and non-stereotyping attitudes. The aim of
this study was to analyze the frequency of
occurrence of possible stereotypes linked
to gender, age, race and somatotype present
in images of English textbooks in the
third cycle of Primary Education of Spanish
schools. Thus, a descriptive study was
carried out with 1774 images from 5 English-
as-a-Foreign-Language textbook collections
for the fifth and sixth grades (Bugs
World, Incredible Kit, Footstep, Beep and
Find Out). The results show a great preva

lence of young, white and slim bodies
represented in the images of the English
textbooks. Gender stereotypes, however,
seem to have been removed from these
textbooks. It is important that teachers become
aware of the importance of reviewing
the teaching resources at their disposal
to ensure the value of cultural diversity
and equal opportunity to every student. In
the event teacher resources do not meet
these standards, teachers should elaborate
their own complementary teaching
resources. In that sense, a didactic proposal
and some guidelines were included
in the study to establish a model on how
to use images in Primary Education so that
stereotypes can be identified, recognized
and avoided.