Representations of Class, Race, and Gender in Textbooks

This chapter reviews the theoretical and methodological approaches taken in literature focusing on representations of race, class, and gender in textbooks. The sample examined spans different countries and subjects. Whereas critical political economy has shaped the approach to class, concepts from critical race studies have been applied to race in textbooks and liberal and radical feminist theory to gender. Many studies use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, with gender analysts mostly conducting quantitative studies and critical race theorists deploying critical discourse analysis. Whereas fewer studies are conducted on class, those on race feature less quantitative work and those on gender less research on identity. New research focusing on the sometimes unpredictably contradictory relationship between context and textbook representations is important for future work.