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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter consists of five sections which expose to the rationale and purpose of the study. Those five sections are background of the study, problem
limitation, problem formulation, research goals, and benefits of the study. The explanation of each section is presented as follows.
1.1 Background of the Study
Achieving gender equality remains unachieved, despite ages of struggle. Confined by its definition,
“gender equality denotes women having the same opportunities in life as men, including the ability to participate in the public
sphere. ” Reeves and Baden, 2000: 2. In this case, Reeves and Baden 2000
argue that it does not demand equality outcomes since the main goal is to remove
the barriers of participation.
Moreover, gender equality issue also becomes more prominent when it has been discussed in many various fields UNESCO, 2007, in Wu and Liu, 2015;
Brugeilles and Cromer, 2009. In language and education field, the issue has been started since 1970s until now Hartman and Judd, 1978; Porreca, 1984; Arliss,
1991; Rifkin, 1998; Lee and Collins, 2008; Bursuc, 2013; Toci and Aliu, 2013; Aydignolu, 2014; Wu and Liu, 2015.
Many experts believe that the interrelation between gender and education becomes a gateway to create gender equality and to eliminate stereotype upon
female and male Brugeilles and Cromer, 2009; Bursuc, 2013; Blumberg, 2015. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
They believe that education can decrease a gender gap. When students have already introduced and learned the gender equality in the school, the traditional
stereotypes which label female and male are decreased as they understand the issue and knowledge earlier.
In education field, gender inequality can be detected through the use of classroom language, and teaching and learning material Stockwell, 2003. The
use of textbook as teaching and learning sources should be controlled since gender bias may appear in the textbooks. In this case, gender bias can be found in the use
of names, illustration, and language. In English education field, many scholars who are expert in linguistic and
education fields have conducted a lot of interdisciplinary research related to the study of gender and education. Porreca 1984 conducts a content analysis
research on sexism in ESL English as a Second Language materials. In that year, it becomes a great research since she examines 15 ESL textbooks from 27 ESL
centers. Since her analysis are specific and detail, the other researchers replicate her research, such as Rifkin 1998, Dominguez 2003, Lee and Collins 2008,
and Wu and Liu 2015. Rifkin 1998 analyzes 12 foreign language textbooks of Russian. The
nature of his research is quantitative. It aims at identifying the greatest inequity in gender representation by examining the data for each criterion across all the
textbooks examined. Meanwhile, both Dominguez 2003 and Wu and Liu 2015 analyzes gender representation in English Textbooks. Dominguez 2003 only
analyzes a book written by Jack C. Richard. He finds that the gender representation both for woman and man are equal. Then, Wu and Liu 2015
investigate gender representation in the primary English textbooks which are used from 1978 to 2003 in China. As a result, it shows that gender bias is still
maintained in the textbooks. Specifically, the results shows that female invisibility in texts and illustrations, gender stereotypes in occupational and domestic roles,
and domestic and school activities, and inequality in utterances and instances of female and male firstness.
Damayanti 2014 analyzes gender representation in English textbooks in Indonesian context. However, her research is only specified in investigating the
visual images in the textbooks. The results show that female characters are dependent. Moreover, they are also constructed to admire male actions. It means
that English textbooks in Indonesia still have gender bias. Moreover, the textbooks are still perpetuating traditional stereotypes upon gender.
Besides, Gailea and Rasyid 2015 also conduct a study which analyzes gender representation in some English textbooks written by Indonesian and
English authors. As a result, the English textbooks written by Indonesian authors still present gender inequality in the design. On the contrary, an English textbook
written by English author presents gender equality in the design. However, those studies have not explained whether those researchers also
confirm their results with the authors of the textbooks or not. In fact, the confirmation can give more information on authors‟ beliefs regarding gender. It
can depict whether authors ‟ beliefs influence their designs or not.
Sumalatha 2004, in Toci and Aliu, 2013: 32 states that “textbooks are the most potential instruments, which help in building up the desirable attitudes in
children”. It means that textbooks can give both positive and negative PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
perspectives upon gender for children. Since children are in the developmental age, they can easily imitate some attitudes in their surroundings, especially
imitating what they have studied in their textbooks. Thus, this current study is going to investigate gender awareness in English
learners‟ textbooks for children in the elementary school.
1.2 Problem Limitation
