gender representation in new english textbooks (vision series) of secondary schools in iran

Gender bias as a social problem still exists in most developing countries and some developed societies and in most cases this discrimination is in favor of men. despite efforts to address or reduce this problem in some societies, including iran, the problem of gender discrimination and gender inequality is often found in textbooks in different countries. therefore, considering the role and impact of textbooks on students, the present study examined the new english textbooks (vision series) of secondary schools of iran and examined the issue of gender inequality and how it is presented in these books. this is a descriptive and qualitative research. the analysis of these books was based on the criteria of brugeilles and cromer (2009). these criteria include: 1. gender representation in images and texts containing female or male names and characters 2. number of pronouns used in the text 3. type of occupations attributed to each gender 4. numbers and types of activities (verbs) including hobbies and qualities 5. number of famous characters used in the text related to male or female. 6. number of relatives used in the texts 7. sex of writers 8. male or female priority used in the text together. both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to improve the findings and content analysis. the findings of this study showed that there are varying degrees of gender inequality and gender discrimination in all six english textbooks (vision series). thus, in most of the criteria examined in these books, the males are the dominant gender and the presence of females is quantitatively pale in contrast to the realities of the society and women are inferior to men. but the quality of gender stereotypes attributed to women has declined in many of the criteria set out in the study of these books, which is a positive attitude towards women. the implications of this study are very useful for textbook designers and writers to solve the problem of gender inequality and help students to focus on the content, not such detailed problems.