Browsing by Author "Somersaari, Sabrina"

The purpose of this study was to examine how gender is represented in a Finnish as a second language textbook, in both visual context and in text. I examined two textbooks made in different decades. Both of the textbooks have been highly used in a classroom setting. I wanted to know how the change in society has affected the gender representations in the textbooks. I also wanted to know what type of gender representations were in the textbook (both visual and textual), and were there any differences on how gender was represented when comparing the two textbooks. Earlier research has shown that male gender is more on display in textbooks used in classroom setting. There are more visual male characters in textbooks than female characters but both male and female gender is represented in a very stereotypical fashion. The two textbooks used in this study were Meidän Suomi, published in 1999, and Suomi 2: minä ja arki, published is 2013. This study is a qualitative research. I analyzed the content of the two textbooks first by counting how many representations of gender were there in a textbook and after focusing on how the genders were represented. The textbooks differed from each other greatly. In the newer one, Suomi2: minä ja arki, gender was represented less stereotypically. There were far less gender representation all together. In Suomi 2: minä ja arki there were also ambiguous characters or characters that represented both female and male characteristics. Although there were more female gender representations in Meidän Suomi, the representations were more stereotypical portrays of a female character than Suomi 2: minä ja arki.