investigating gender representation and teachers’ attitude to its pedagogical effects in english textbooks of iranian high schools: a critical discourse analysis perspective

The present study was conducted to investigate gender representation in iranian high school english textbooks (version 2 & 3) using critical discourse analysis approach and fairclough's three-dimensional model as an analytical model. according to the model, the first step was the description of linguistic items in the text in which five aspects were analyzed: 1) visibility of women and men, 2) social and domestic roles of women and men, 3) semantic roles of men and women,4) activities of women and men, and 5) pictorial representation. in the second and third stages, the data were interpreted and explained in relation to the social context. also, in order to investigate the representation of gender and its pedagogical effects in the textbooks, an adapted from of the questionnaire by yaqoubi notash and nouri was used and some items were added or modified with the reliability of .79. then, the 24-item questionnaire was translated to make it more comprehensible for the teachers. the reliability of the persian version of the questionnaire was estimated to be .88 and its validity was approved by five experts in the field. then, 50 male and female teachers who had the experience teaching vision 2 and 3 answered the questionnaire. moreover, from among the participants, 15 teachers were randomly selected and participated in a semi-structured interview after obtaining their consent. the results of the analyses showed that the textbooks are in favor of men in expressing gender in content and images. this is mostly due to the patriarchal view and gender inequality in textbooks and the transfer of traditional iranian-islamic culture. meanwhile, according to the analysis of the teachers' attitude, the representation of gender is more influential on the students' choice of career through creating the gender stereotypes (patriarchy or feminism). therefore, it is recommended that material designers pay attention to the effects of gender-biased materials while designing english language textbooks.