• No results found

The Spotlight is on Gender - A Study of Verb Dynamics and Gender in Spotlight 7/8/9

N/A
N/A
Protected

Academic year: 2021

Share "The Spotlight is on Gender - A Study of Verb Dynamics and Gender in Spotlight 7/8/9"

Copied!
74
0
0

Loading.... (view fulltext now)

Full text

(1)

Beteckning:

Akademin för ekonomi och utbildning

The Spotlight is on Gender

- A Study of Verb Dynamics and Gender in

Spotlight 7/8/9

Linnea Wirgell

December 2010

Examensarbete 30 hp

Engelsk didaktik

Lärarprogrammet 90hp

(2)

2

Abstract

In the present study I have conducted a linguistic investigation of the textbook series Spotlight 7, 8 and 9 (Natur & Kultur 2008-2010) which is used in grades 7-9. The purpose of the

investigation is to examine what gender roles are presented in the material. The theoretical approach is Halliday‟s (2004) Functional Grammar Theory. The second part of the study presents a discourse analysis of three selected texts from Spotlight 7, 8 and 9 where the texts as well as the related pictures are analysed. The results from the whole study are compared to the goals on gender equality stated in the National Curriculum and the Educational Act.

(3)

3

Acknowledgement

(4)

4

Table of Contents

1 Introduction ... 5 1.1 Background ... 5 1.2 Aim ... 5 1.3 Previous Research... 6

1.4 Primary Material and Scope ... 7

1.5 Method ... 9

2 Gender ... 10

2.1 Sex vs. Gender ... 10

2.2 Gender and School... 10

2.3 Gender and Language ... 11

2.4 Gender and Teaching English... 12

2.4.1 Stative vs. Dynamic Verbs ... 13

2.4.2 Functional Grammar Theory ... 14

2.5 Research Questions... 17

2.6 Hypotheses... 17

3 Results ... 17

3.1 The Overall Results ... 18

3.2 Detailed Results from Spotlight 7 ... 22

3.2.1 Detailed Results from Each Text in Spotlight 7 ... 24

3.3 Detailed Results from Spotlight 8 ... 27

3.3.1 Detailed Results from Each Text in Spotlight 8 ... 30

3.4 Detailed Results from Spotlight 9 ... 32

3.4.1 Detailed Results from Each Text in Spotlight 9 ... 34

4 Discussion ... 36

5 Discourse Analysis of Three Selected Texts ... 37

5.1 Discourse Analysis ... 37

5.2 The Selected Texts ... 38

5.2.1 “Why Me?”... 39

5.2.2 “You Can‟t Control Love” ... 40

5.2.3 “We Never Talked about It” ... 42

6 Summary and Conclusion ... 43

7 References ... 47

Appendix 1: The Data from Spotlight 7/8/9 ... 49

(5)

5

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

This essay will treat the relationship between language and gender connected to the roles these factors play within English teaching in the Swedish school system. The theoretical approach is Halliday‟s (2004) Functional Grammar Theory which is presented in 2.4.2. What is fundamental in this study is what the law and the curriculum say about the issue of gender in school. In the Curriculum for the Compulsory School System, the Pre-School Class and the Leisure Time Centre, LPO94 (LPO94:4-5), it is stated that “[t]he school has a responsibility to counteract traditional gender roles and should therefore provide pupils with the opportunity of developing their own abilities and interests irrespective of their sexual identity”.

And the Education Act declares that “[p]ersons active in the school system shall in particular 1. promote equality between the genders and

2. actively counteract all types of insulting treatment such as bullying or racist behaviour”. Law (1999:886:S.2).

In this essay I will analyse an English teaching material from the perspective of gender roles. With the quotes above in mind, the demands on a teaching material are that it should not demonstrate stereotype gender roles but instead a variety of possible roles and that the representation of gender in the material is equal.

1.2 Aim

(6)

6

one particular teaching material and no safe generalisations about gender equality in teaching material can be made from it.

1.3 Previous Research

Many researchers have found that children are schooled into a gender norm based on the biological sex to which they belong. In various ways children learn what is accepted and not. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003:21) discuss the idea of how boys are encouraged to engage in stereotype boy activities only and how these have higher status than those stereotypically associated with girls. When applied to the topic of this essay it becomes a matter of studying whether the people in the English teaching material are represented as stereotypes or individuals.

Several C-essays have been written on how women/girls and men/boys are described in English learning books as well. Frej Lysén (2009) has studied gender roles in the English text book Blueprint A and found that the results do “not satisfy the goals of the Curriculum or the Educational Act” (Frej Lysén 2009:2). The author conducted the study from a linguistic perspective, looking at stative and dynamic verbs. The hypothesis, which she based on Odén (2005), was that girls/women were often described with stative verbs while boys/men were described as more dynamic. Both of these authors found that their results matched this hypothesis. Burton (1982, cited in Mills 2008) has discovered that the verbs used with girls/boys often describe how boys are active while girls are passive (Burton 1982, cited in Mills 2008:69). Carlswärd and Lindman (2006) have studied gender in the learning material Give ‘n’ Take: Reader for the English subject. Their results showed a lack of fulfilment regarding the goal of gender equality that is stated in the National Curriculum and in addition to this males in the book are represented to a much higher extent than are females. The authors interpret the book to demonstrate that females and males are not given the same possibilities and are not valued equally (Carlswärd and Lindman 2006:26-27). None of the authors above has included transgender but has chosen the binary gender division of female and male instead of a three-partite gender division of female, male and transgender.

(7)

7

School?” (I enighet med skolans värdegrund?) . In the study on which this report was based, teaching material has been analysed from various perspectives, where gender is one. As mentioned in subsection 1.3 the results from this study point towards an over-representation of males and male norms while females are most often included but to a lesser extent and transgender almost always excluded. The authors interpret the material analysed as heteronormative (Berge and Widding 2006:30-31). Their description of an exemplary teaching material would be one that portrays females, males and transgender equally and that counteracts stereotype gender roles (Berge and Widding 2006:32). The over-representation mentioned above was found in Graham (1975/2006) as well. Her results showed that there were twice the number of boys than girls in the books and men were represented over seven times more than women (Graham 1975/2006, cited in Mills 2008:49).

1.4 Primary Material and Scope

The material that is to be studied consists of three books. They are text books named Spotlight 7, Spotlight 8 and Spotlight 9 and are published by Natur och Kultur in 2008-2010. When looking for a teaching material to examine, I found that a number of textbooks had already been studied. The Spotlight series however, is relatively newly published and has therefore not yet been investigated. Nowhere is it overtly expressed that the factor of gender has been included in the writing and designing of these books and they are not advertised with a link to the essential values of the Swedish school. However, when looking at the topics of the texts they seem less stereotypic than expected. The texts in Spotlight 7-9 treat for example Billy Elliott (a working-class English boy who wants to dance ballet), girls playing ice-hockey, boys wearing make-up and Annie Seel (a female racing motorcyclist).

(8)

8

basis of their large amount of data and the fact that they are intended for all students, rather than on their contents. I believe that if the texts included in the study were all consciously chosen because they somehow treat gender roles, there is a risk that the results would be affected by this decision. Because of this I have chosen texts which are categorised as Text B, no matter what the theme is. In Table 1 I present these texts and the sex of each protagonist.

Table 1. The Included Texts and Their Protagonists.

Book Text Sex of Protagonist

Spotlight 7 A Mongrel Called Monster Male

Spotlight 7 Why Me? Male

Spotlight 7 The Skateboard Male

Spotlight 7 My Tattoo Male

Spotlight 7 Nobody Remembers a Coward Female Spotlight 8 You Can‟t Control Love Female Spotlight 8 World of Warcraft: King of

Fantasy Games

Not specific

Spotlight 8 Daniel Tammet: An Incredible Mind!

Male

Spotlight 9 We Never Talked about It Male

Spotlight 9 Abducted by Aliens Not specific Spotlight 9 MJ – The King of Pop Male

(9)

1.5 Method

This study is based on a corpus consisting of texts (presented in section 1.4) from Spotlight 7, 8 and 9. In the first part of the study these have been read carefully. The present study has a linguistic perspective and will focus on how the texts included are written rather than on what topics they treat. All verbs that are connected to either a female, male or transgender subject have been included in the categorisation. A complete list of these verbs is found in Appendix 1. These verbs have then been categorised on the basis of their expressions of states (stative verbs) or actions (dynamic verbs), and also whether the connected subjects are passive or active. The results from the analysis of the verbs are then compared to the gender guidelines stated in the National Curriculum presented in subsection 1.1 in order to establish whether this teaching material fulfils the expectations regarding gender equality.

The reason for including the three-partite gender division in the categorisation is that the binary division of females and males is indeed problematic. In order to clarify, a definition of transgender will be provided. According to RFSL - The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights transgender is defined as “[a] collective concept which usually refers to individuals whose sexual identity and/or sexual expression temporarily or permanently deviates from the norm that belongs to the sex that the individual was born with. Someone can only be a transperson if they themselves self-identify as a transperson. Usually dragqueens, dragkings, intersexuals, transgenders, transsexuals, and transvestites are included under this term”.

(10)

10

2 Gender

2.1 Sex vs. Gender

There is a distinction between the terms sex and gender. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003:10) argue that “[s]ex is a biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential, whereas gender is the social elaboration of biological sex”. Researchers talk about gender as a performance and the authors offer the following explanation of a difference in understanding the two terms: “Rather than conceptualizing gender as an identity someone just „has,‟ analysts began viewing gender as involving what people „do.‟” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003:4). The expression doing gender is commonly used to describe this social and cultural construction. This description also suggests that gender is formed and reformed repeatedly (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003:4). According to Molloy (2003:67) “gender is created in the moment a child is born and someone asks whether „it is a boy or a girl‟. The child is subsequently socialised into a gender system through family and society”. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet appear to agree with the socialization theory and highlight the importance of other people in this process: “Gender is not an individual matter at all, but a collaborative affair that connects the individual to the social order” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003:31). It is thus clear that society and its people are of great importance in the creation and re-creation of a person‟s gender. The place within society where children and young adults spend most of their time is in school.

2.2 Gender and School

Sweden is one of the 192 countries (UNICEF) that have agreed to undertake the obligations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In the second article is stated that:

(11)

11

In Sweden all children has compulsory school attendance for nine years and all children are included in what is stated in the quote above. Hence, no child may be discriminated on the basis of their sex, in school or elsewhere. However, there is still gender inequality in school and in all of society. The connection between gender and school is discussed for example in Gannerud (1999) where the author presents the idea of schools having gender regimes which are described as patterns of accepted behaviour and tasks. These patterns create a structure of power and prestige connected to gender (Gannerud 1999:11-12). Molloy (2003:67) argues that the school has a choice between maintaining traditional gender structure and acting against it by the way the gender regime in the school environment is structured. Molloy implies that by changing the gender regime in school students can be seen as individuals instead of as stereotypes (Molloy 2003:67). In the Curriculum for the compulsory school system, the preschool class and the leisure-time centre it is stated that:

“The school should actively and consciously further equal rights and opportunities for men and women. The way in which girls and boys are treated and assessed in school as well as the demands and expectations that are placed on them, contributes to their perception of gender differences. The school has a responsibility to counteract traditional gender roles and should therefore provide pupils with the opportunity of developing their own abilities and interests irrespective of their sexual identity” (LPO94:4-5).

Hence, everyone working in the school is required to act against the traditional gender regime. This can be done in a number of ways where one example is through language.

2.3 Gender and Language

(12)

12

It has been shown how a student‟s gender influences the teacher‟s behaviour towards that student and the behaviour is often communicated through words. Coates (2004) illustrates how a teacher expresses the rule that the students need to raise their hands if they want to add something to the discussion at hand. The boys in the classroom forget or ignore the rule and are encouraged when they express their opinions out loud. The first girl that forgets or ignores the rule receives a comment on the fact that she forgot the rule and that she should have raised her hand if she wanted to join the discussion (Coates 2004:189-190). In her conclusion, the author states that the way in which language is used in the classroom highly affects the gender structure. The teacher and the students, whether female, male or transgender all participate in maintaining this structure which represents men‟s dominance over women (Coates 2004:196-197). The legal demand on counteracting traditional stereotypic gender roles is to be conducted in all sections of the school. The spoken language is one matter which needs to be critically analysed and the written language is another.

2.4 Gender and Teaching English

The Swedish National Agency for Education has carried out a study “The Position of the Textbook in Teaching” („Läromedlens roll i undervisningen‟) (Skolverket 2006a:20-21) where it was found that more than 60% of the participating teachers uses textbooks on a regular basis and that every fifth teacher uses textbooks every lesson. The teachers gave various reasons for their high use of textbooks, for example that the book is good support for the students and that it helps the teacher in planning the lessons (Skolverket 2006a:21). In the study 77% completely agrees that using learning books ensures that the teaching acts in accordance with the essential values that are expressed in the Swedish National Curriculum (Skolverket 2006a:87). When adding what is said in LPO94 about counteracting traditional gender roles to the high usage of textbooks, it is obvious that the written teaching material itself must also fulfil the demand found in LPO94. In order to determine if textbooks that are used in school do counteract traditional gender roles, studies must be made. In section 1.3 I present previous research on the topic.

(13)

13

creates an even greater responsibility on the content and the fulfilment of the school‟s goals, for example the essential values.

Regarding the claim that using teaching books ensures the fulfilment of the essential values in school, The Swedish National Agency for Education has found that men and boys are over-represented in the majority of the learning books included in the study and that this over-representation demonstrates males as the norm and females as deviant from the norm (Skolverket 2006b:43). Transgender is included as one category in the study but very little representation of this was found in the material analysed (Skolverket 2006b:30). This result suggests that teachers should question the idea of securing the fulfilment of the essential values by using the textbooks (Skolverket 2006a:133).

2.4.1 Stative vs. Dynamic Verbs

Hene (1984) has listed a dichotomy of stereotypic gender-specific qualities in her study on adjectival descriptions. The author found two of these binary pairs to be that of passivity and activity and emotionality and rationality (Hene 1984:251). Traditionally, males are expected to be more active and rational and females more passive and emotional. This idea can be tested in a linguistic study. In this essay I will look closely at verbs expressing these features.

Some verbs that express a state rather than an action do not normally occur in the progressive form. Svartvik and Sager (1996/2007) have divided these so called stative verbs into three categories. Examples of these categories are taken from the text books and the verb which exemplifies each category is italicised. Examples (1) and (2) belong in the Senses category, examples (3), (4) and (5) in the Attitudes category and examples (6) and (7) in the Relations category.

(1) Yes, I‟m the son of a rocket scientist who looks like a caveman. (Robertsen, E., Olsson, E., Haythorpe, J. 2008:52)

(2) I never liked the sound of the stories I heard in school. (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:12)

(3) I never liked the sound of the stories I heard in school. (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:12)

(14)

14

(5) She had known him ever since he came over… (Jonas, R., Lantz, C. 2009:12)

(6) Is that the aunt who is mentally unstable? (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:53)

(7) …Sarah has an abduction story of her own to tell… (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:52)

Verbs expressing an action on the other hand are called dynamic verbs and are often used in the progressive form. Examples (8), (9) and (10) are taken from the text books and the verbs which exemplify the dynamic category are italicised.

(8) …talking back to the teachers, making disrespectful gestures… (Jonas, R., Lantz, C. 2009:11)

(9) He could make the hand wave when he flexed his arm muscles. (Robertsen, E., Olsson, E., Haythorpe, J. 2008:68)

(10) She stood up, and started to walk towards the door. (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:14)

Regarding the first part of the present essay, the Svartvik/Sager model presented in examples (1)-(7) will only demonstrate the help to know a stative verb from a dynamic in the categorisation process. However, in the second part of the essay these categories will serve as a basis for a more thorough analysis of three texts and the stative verbs will be divided into the three categories exemplified in examples (1)-(7). The reason for including this categorisation of stative verbs is to investigate whether one can detect a difference in meanings between stative verbs connected to female, male and transgender respectively.

(15)

15

The theoretical approach to the present study is Halliday‟s (2004) Functional Grammar Theory. In the following paragraphs the theory will be presented and the linguistic terms and the categories which are used in the study will be explained and exemplified. The reasons for choosing this theory will also be included in the texts.

Where traditional grammar offers only one kind of subject in each clause i.e. those performing the action of the verb (predicate/verb phrase), this grammar theory goes somewhat further. Halliday (2004) has analysed the different functions a subject can have and divided these into categories. The reason for this is that it may be seen as problematic to speak of only one function of a subject, when the structure of a clause can make the functions differ. Halliday (2004) proposes the division below and I have added examples of these categories from the text books and the subject which exemplifies each category is italicised.

I. Psychological Subject = Theme

This subject denotes “that which is the concern of the message” (Halliday 2005:55-56)

(11) After 7 days he could speak and understand it well. (Jonas, R., Lantz, C. 2009:84)

II. Grammatical Subject = Subject

This subject denotes “that of which something is being predicated (that is on which rests the truth of the argument)” (Halliday 2005:55-56)

(12) Sophie had been in love with him ever since. (Jonas, R., Lantz, C. 2009:11)

The reason for including Halliday‟s (2004) theme and subject in this investigation is that this is where focus lies in a clause. From a gender perspective this factor is interesting because if all genders are represented to an equal extent but only one of the genders function as theme or subject, the result is interesting to analyse.

(16)

16

clauses only. (13) is an example of an actor taken from the teaching material. The actor is italicised.

(13) Sophie passed Julian in the hallway a couple of times… (Jonas, R., Lantz, C. 2009:13)

Since „doer‟ does not really work when it comes to mental clauses with verbs that express states and feeling, Halliday presents terms which are better suited to these verbs. Hence, where Actor is used in material clauses describing who performs the action, Senser will be used in the mental clauses describing the person who “‟senses‟ – feels, thinks, wants or perceives” (Halliday 2004:201). (14) is an example of the latter category taken from the teaching material. The senser is italicised.

(14) Ididn‟t like it. (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:84)

In order to investigate whether there is a difference between genders when it comes to activity/passivity, it may be interesting to include if the Actors and Sensers affect another person and if that person most often is female, male or transgender. Halliday (2004) presents terms which denote these affected persons. In the case of dynamic verbs, there is an actor affecting a goal (Halliday 2004:52). (15) is an example of this and only the goal is italicised.

(15) ...then he got pissed off and dumped her. (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:14)

Regarding the stative verbs and the affected person of a Senser’s so called „sensing‟ is called Phenomenon by Halliday (2004:203). (16) is an example of this and only the phenomenon is italicised.

(17)

17

2.5 Research Questions

I. Is there a connection between the use of stative/dynamic verbs and the gender of the subjects?

II. Do the texts in Spotlight 7, 8 and 9 follow the guidelines of gender equality stated in the National Curriculum?

III. Are female, male and transgender represented to the same extent in the texts?

2.6 Hypotheses

My hypotheses for this study are based on the results from previous research carried out on the topic. They are linked to the research questions in section 2.5 and will be presented accordingly.

I. I hypothesise that I will find a connection between the use of stative/dynamic verbs and the gender of the subjects. Frej Lysén (2009:21) discovered a difference and concluded that the females presented in the text book were connected to stative verbs to a high extent while men more often were associated with dynamic verbs.

II. I hypothesise that the texts will not reach the demands on gender equality stated in the National Curriculum and presented in this essay in section 1. I base this hypothesis on Frej Lysén (2009) and Skolverket (2006) where no textbooks were approved to fulfil the goals of gender equality.

III. I hypothesise that males are represented to a higher extent than females and that I will find no representation whatsoever of transgender in Spotlight 7, 8 or 9. This is based on the results in Berge and Widding (2006) (presented in 1.3) who found that transgender was almost always excluded in teaching material.

3 Results

(18)

18

will be presented. After this follow subsection 3.3where I present the results from Spotlight 8 and 3.3.1 which contains the results from each text in this book. Finally come section 3.4 where the results from all texts in Spotlight 9 can be found and 3.4.1where these texts‟ results will be presented one at the time. In all subsections one will find figures/tables displaying the results followed by comments. To clarify the structure; I will name the results from all books Overall Results, whereas the results from each book will be called Detailed Results from Each Book and finally the results from each text in each book will be termed Detailed Results from Each Text in Spotlight 7/8/9.

3.1 The Overall Results

In the study I have sampled data consisting of verbs the subjects connected to these. A three-partite gender division is used when connecting the subjects to a gender and in Figure 1 the total representation of all three genders is presented.

Figure 1. Overall Results of Grammatical Subjects Connected to Gender.

As displayed in Figure 1 there is a higher representation of males than of females in the present study. The data illustrated no representation of transgender whatsoever. Because of this result, I will leave out comments on this category in the detailed results from the study. Since there is no presentation of transgender in the overall results, one will find no representation in the detailed results sections either. This category however will still be included I the figures since the lack of representation is a result as well.

(19)

19

Out of the total 571 grammatical subjects, 59% represented males and 41% represented females. This result goes in line with The Swedish National Agency for Education‟s (Skolverket 2006b:43) study where men and boys were found to be over-represented in the majority of the learning books included.

The verbs included in the scope have been categorised according to their dynamics as well. In Figure 2 the total number of verbs stative and dynamic verbs and the distribution between the two is presented.

Figure 2. Overall Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs.

(20)

20

Figure 3. Overall Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs Connected to Gender.

Figure 3 presents results that are interesting since they are quite the opposite of the results found in the Previous Research Section 1.3 As is displayed in Figure 3 females in the study are slightly more often described as dynamic than stative and males the other way around. However, because of the over-representation of males, males are also more often connected to dynamic verbs than females. Frej Lysén (2009:21) drew the conclusion from her study that females were more often described as stative and males as dynamic, but so far in this study the situation seems to be the opposite.

In Table 2 I will present the results regarding Halliday‟s (2004) Functional Grammar Theory which was presented in subsection 2.4.2. The table will display the distribution of actors/goals and sensers/phenomena connected to gender. The result from these categories will be included here, in subsection 3.1 where the overall results are presented, but not in the following subsections containing the detailed results. The reason for this is the low amount of data, since only the combined result offers the demanded validity regarding this category. What is interesting with Halliday‟s (2004) theory here is to investigate whether one can detect a gender difference between who affects whom regarding stative and dynamic verbs in the texts. To clarify; an actor is connected to a dynamic verb and a goal is whom the actor affects. A senser is connected to a stative verb and a phenomenon is what the „senser senses‟. Again, a more thorough explanation of these terms is presented in subsection 2.4.2. Since no transgender subjects were found, this category is not included in Table 2. This decision is due to space limitations in the essay. The fact that no transgender subjects were found is still very much acknowledged.

(21)

21

Table 2. Overall Results on Actors/Goals and Sensers/Phenomena connected to gender.

Female Actor Female Goal 2

Male Actor Male Goal 5

Female Actor Male Goal 17

Male Actor Female Goal 8

Female Senser Female Phenomenon 3

Male Senser Male Phenomenon 14

Female Senser Male Phenomenon 6 Male Senser Female Phenomenon 2

Total 57

As Table 2 displays there are two combinations which are represented to a higher extent than all others. A female actor with a male goal is the category with the most occurrences. 53% of all actors/goals are females affecting males. (17) exemplifies this combination. The actor and the goal are italicised.

(17) The girl closed her fist and punched me on the shoulder. (Robertsen, E., Olsson, E., Haythorpe, J. 2008:28)

Example (17) illustrates how the girl is the actor and „me‟ (the boy) is the goal. The other combination with a high result is male senser with a male phenomenon. Out of all obtained sensers, this combination represents 56% and it is exemplified in (18). The senser and the phenomenon are italicised.

(18) I knew blokes at school who did that... (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:12)

(22)

22

found more male than female actors in her investigation but in the present study the female actors out-number the male actors. This result emphasises how the females are more often associated to dynamic verbs than stative in the texts in Spotlight 7/8/9. It is interesting however, that dynamic females affect males and that stative males also affect males. The females do not seem to be described as passive objects in the texts included.

The next step after this somewhat remarkable result will be to investigate the results from each book followed by all texts one at the time.

3.2 Detailed Results from Spotlight 7

In order to be able to know the level of reliability of the results presented in subsection 3.1 it proves necessary to go one step further and find out if the detailed results will demonstrate the same pattern. In this subsection I will present the results from Spotlight 7. Figure 4 displays the distribution of gender-related grammatical subjects.

Figure 4. Detailed Results of Grammatical Subjects Connected to Gender in Spotlight 7.

Figure 4 shows how males outnumber females in the first text book studied. In Figure 1, where the combined representation of gender-related grammatical subjects was presented, the distribution of males and females was 59% and 40%, respectively. In the detailed result from Spotlight 7 however, this gap has widened into 67% and 33%, respectively. So, based on this data, the first image students in the 7th grade receive from this English teaching material is an unequal distribution of gender. Figure 8 and 12 will present the results from the two following

(23)

23

books in this teaching material regarding the representation of gender-related grammatical subjects.

Regarding the occurrences of stative and dynamic verbs, Figure 5 will demonstrate the detailed result from Spotlight 7.

Figure 5. Detailed Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs in Spotlight 7.

What Figure 5 presents is a result fairly similar to that in Figure 2 regarding the distribution of dynamic and stative verbs. The result is similar in the way that the results are next to 50-50 between the two categories. However, there is a slight difference between Figure 2 and Figure 5. The percentage of dynamic verbs is 49% in the overall results in Figure 2 and 52% in the detailed results from Spotlight 7 in Figure 5. This insignificant difference however, will not be interpreted as a difference of great importance. Since this area of investigation is gender-related linguistic differences in texts, Figure 6 will present results that are even more interesting as it contains the detailed results of dynamic and stative verbs connected to gender.

(24)

24

Figure 6. Detailed Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs Connected to Gender in Spotlight 7.

As is displayed in Figure 6, males out-number females in both categories. This result was not surprising regarding dynamic verbs but the high number of male-associated stative verbs is indeed remarkable. When compared to the overall results from the whole teaching material which were presented in Figure 3 it is clear that this pattern is demonstrated there as well. Also in Figure 3 the difference between the genders in each category was greater in the category of stative verbs than among the dynamic verbs. When compared to the results discussed in the previous research section 1.3, this result displays a change.

3.2.1 Detailed Results from Each Text in Spotlight 7

In this subsection the results from Spotlight 7 will be presented in a detailed manner where the texts are separated and thus give the opportunity of investigating each text‟s results. Figure 7 displays the representation of gender-related grammatical subjects in each text from the book.

27 45 77 67 0 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

(25)

25

Figure 7. Detailed Results of Grammatical Subjects Connected to Gender from each text in Spotlight 7.

As is demonstrated in Figure 7, there are two texts where the male subjects outnumber the female ones and these are “The Skateboard” and “My Tattoo”. Also “A Mongrel Called Monster” includes more male subjects than female, but here there is a smaller difference between the two. In subsection 1.4 I present the gender of the protagonist in each text and among the texts listed in Figure 7, it is only in “Nobody Remembers a Coward” where the protagonist is female. This is visible in the results from that text, where 96% of the grammatical subjects are female. Among the other texts which all have male protagonists it is only in one where the results do not correspond to this fact and that is “Why Me?”. One possible reason for this could be the text‟s high amount of dialogues between the male protagonist and various females so that although the story is being told by a male, females play a big role in it.

Next follow each text‟s results regarding stative and dynamic verbs connected to gender-associated grammar subjects from Spotlight 7. These will be presented in Table 3. To the left in the table are the texts listed and at the top are the different categories regarding stative/dynamic verbs connected to gender.

(26)

26

Table 3. Detailed Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs Connected to Gender from Each Text in Spotlight 7. Texts Female Subject + Stative Verb Male Subject + Stative Verb Trans-gender Subject + Stative Verb Female Subject + Dynamic Verb Male Subject + Dynamic Verb Trans-gender Subject + Dynamic Verb Total A Mongrel Called Monster 0 8 0 4 8 0 20 Why Me? 4 6 0 18 7 0 35 The Skateboard 0 30 0 0 31 0 61 My Tattoo 1 31 0 1 19 0 52 Nobody Remembers a Coward 23 1 0 23 1 0 48 Total 28 76 0 46 66 0 216

(27)

27

3.3 Detailed Results from Spotlight 8

This subsection will contain the detailed results from the whole book of Spotlight 8 and will be structured in the same manner as was 3.2 which presented the detailed results from Spotlight 7. In Figure 8 the results regarding gender representation will be displayed.

Figure 8. Detailed Results of Grammatical Subjects Connected to Gender in Spotlight 8.

Figure 8 presents a very small difference in representation between females and males. Still, the slight difference that does exist is in favor of the male category, as was found in Figures 1 and 4 as well. With a 53% advantage however, the results can be described as next to equal. In Figure 9 I will present Spotlight 8‟s results regarding dynamic and stative verbs.

(28)

28

Figure 9. Detailed Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs in Spotlight 8.

Figure 9 demonstrates a divergence between the two categories dynamic and stative. 56% of the verbs included were dynamic and 44% were stative. This difference is too small to attach great importance to it, but it might still be interesting to compare these results to those from Spotlight 7 in this regard. As was shown in Figure 5 the first book in the series included 52% dynamic verbs and 48% stative. These results are indeed quite similar and in Figure 13 the corresponding results from Spotlight 9 will be illustrated. These rather similar results can also be compared to those in Figure 2 where the overall results of dynamic and stative verbs were presented and which demonstrated a 49% frequency of dynamic verbs. Hence, the slightly higher representation of dynamic verbs that one can see in Spotlight 7 and 8 is not there in the overall results. Again, it might be interesting to compare these results to those from Spotlight 9 in Figure 13.

Figure 10. Detailed Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs Connected to Gender in Spotlight 8.

75 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Number of Verbs Verb Type Dynamic Verbs Stative Verbs 35 29 40 31 0 0 0 5 1015 2025 3035 4045 Dynamic

(29)

29

(30)

3.3.1 Detailed Results from Each Text in Spotlight 8

To begin with I will introduce the gender representation in each text in Figure 11. There are three texts categorised as Text B in Spotlight 8 and these are listed on the x-axis.

Figure 11. Detailed Results of Grammatical Subjects Connected to Gender From Each Text in Spotlight 8.

Figure 11 differs quite a lot from the other figures. Spotlight 8 includes only three texts that are categorised as Text B. The results from the second text listed in Figure 11 need to be explained. The second text named “World of Warcraft: King of Fantasy Games” is a text in which there are no verbs connected to gender-associated grammatical subjects whatsoever. The text is a description of the computer game World of Warcraft and the person to whom all verbs are associated is the reader. In the whole text I was not able to find one single verb that was connected to a human being that was not the reader. The first text called “You Can‟t Control Love” is about a girl who is in love with a boy. This text has a female protagonist and maybe that is why there is a higher number of female grammatical subjects. With 70% against 30% this is the text with the highest representation of female subjects in Spotlight 8. The third and final Text B in this book has no female representation at all. This is not that surprising since the text is about an autistic young man and not much is said about people around him. Next, I will present the detailed results of verb dynamics and gender in each text from

64 0 0 28 0 42 0 0 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 You Can't

(31)

31

Spotlight 8. This will be done in Table 4 where the three texts are listed to the left and the categories of verb dynamics combined with gender are listed at the top.

Table 4. Detailed Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs Connected to Gender from Each Text in Spotlight 8. Texts Female Subject + Stative Verb Male Subject + Stative Verb Trans-gender Subject + Stative Verb Female Subject + Dynamic Verb Male Subject + Dynamic Verb Trans-gender Subject + Dynamic Verb Total You Can‟t Control Love 32 10 0 33 17 0 92 World of Warcraft: King of Fantasy Games 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Daniel Tammet: An Incredible Mind! 0 18 0 0 24 0 42 Total 32 28 0 33 41 0 134

(32)

32

protagonist were dynamic. The difference between the two is indeed small, but still it seems reasonable to claim that it is no coincidence that there were more dynamic than stative verbs connected to the male subject. This result could be compared to the text in Spotlight 7 named “Nobody Remembers a Coward” where there was 50-50 with regard to verb dynamics connected to gender. These results are found in Table 3.

3.4 Detailed Results from Spotlight 9

In this subsection the detailed results from the final book in the series will be presented and commented on. The first result demonstrated will be that of gender representation and this is found in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Detailed Results of Grammatical Subjects Connected to Gender in Spotlight 9.

Displayed in Figure 12 is the higher representation of males than of females that exist also in the third and final book. 56% of all grammatical subjects are male. As has been the case with many results obtained, the difference is not great, but it seems to exist and it seems to be at the males‟ advantage. Next in this section is the presentation of these gender-related subjects connected to verb dynamics. These results will be presented in Figure 13.

(33)

33

Figure 13. Detailed Results of Stative and Dynamic Verbs in Spotlight 9.

The distribution of verb types that is demonstrated in Figure 13 can be compared to those in Figures 5 and 9. This comparison shows that Spotlight 9 is the first book that contains more stative verbs than dynamic verbs. Traditionally and according to the results from previous research offered in section 1.3 this would create the anticipation that there would also be a higher representation of females in this book. However, as was demonstrated in Figure 12 this was not the case. With the result in Figure 13 in mind it will be interesting to follow the results regarding verb dynamics and gender. These are found in Figure 14.

Figure 14. Detailed Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs Connected to Gender in Spotlight 9.

Figure 14 offers quite a remarkable result in comparison to those in section 1.3 since this is the first one to show results completely opposite to those. With a higher number for dynamic verbs connected to female grammatical subjects and a higher number for stative verbs

92 128 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Number of Verbs Verb Type Dynamic Verbs Stative Verbs 49 48 43 80 0 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

(34)

34

connected to male grammatical subjects, this result does stand out. A detail that is interesting as well is the fact that there is a larger gap between the genders regarding stative verbs than regarding dynamic verbs. That is, males significantly out-number females among the stative verbs. In the following subsection, 3.4.1 these results will be presented in a detailed manner, one text at the time.

3.4.1 Detailed Results from Each Text in Spotlight 9

In this subsection the results from each text in Spotlight 9 will be presented and commented on. What can be interesting is the distribution of gender representation and verb dynamics, and the two factors combined, among the texts. These results together with those in 3.2.1 and 3.3.1 are the basis for which texts to analyse deeper in section 5. To begin with, the results regarding gender representation in the texts in Spotlight 9 are presented in Figure 15.

Figure 15. Detailed Results of Grammatical Subjects Connected to Gender from each text in Spotlight 9.

Among the texts included in Figure 15, the first and the third text have male protagonists. Texts number two and four have no specific protagonist but contain dialogues between three individuals with female/male gender. The two texts with male protagonists have higher male representation than female with 63% male subjects in “We Never Talked about It” and 78% male subjects in “MJ – The King of Pop”. “Abducted by Aliens” which has no specific

32 45 9 11 54 27 31 11 0 0 0 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 We Never Talked About It Abducted by

(35)

35

protagonist has 63% female subjects and “Talk about a Dump!” contains 50% each. This 50-50 result would be the anticipated when there is no specific protagonist, but obviously this was only true for one of these texts.

With these results in mind it may be interesting to consider the distribution of dynamic and stative verbs connected to gender in each text in Spotlight 9 and these results are found in Table 5. To the left are the texts listed and at the top one will find each category regarding gender combined with verb dynamics.

Table 5. Detailed Results of Dynamic/Stative Verbs Connected to Gender from Each Text in Spotlight 9. Texts Female Subject + Stative Verb Male Subject + Stative Verb Trans-gender Subject + Stative Verb Female Subject + Dynamic Verb Male Subject + Dynamic Verb Trans-gender Subject + Dynamic Verb Total We Never Talked About It 13 33 0 19 21 0 86 Abducted by Aliens 25 18 0 20 9 0 72 MJ – The King of Pop 5 22 0 4 9 0 40 Talk About a Dump! 5 7 0 6 4 0 22 Total 48 80 0 49 43 0 220

(36)

36

are 61% and 71%, respectively. In the second text listed there seems to be more stative verbs overall, connected to female and male subjects. In “Talk about a Dump!” the amount of data is very small and one cannot argue that the slight difference between the categories is of any greater importance.

4 Discussion

This section will contain a discussion on the obtained results in section 3 and its subsections. The results have already been commented on briefly and in section 4 I will take these comments one step further and discuss them deeper. In section 6 I will conclude all results from section 3 and 5 and connect the discussion back to the research questions and the hypotheses.

The overall results presented in subsection 3.1 demonstrate how there is a difference in gender representation. 59% of the grammatical subjects are male and 41% are female. No grammatical subjects are transgender. In subsection 1.3 another study is presented on gender in teaching material; Berge and Widding (2006) and an under-representation of transgender is found there as well. In their summary they state that this under-representation creates a risk that transgender is made invisible and that this is discrimination (2006:31). When analysing the results from each text, it seems that in six out of 12 texts, there is a higher number of male grammatical subjects than it is females. This means that in 50% of the texts included there is male over-representation. This may seem equal but when looking at the other six texts, one of them has no grammatical subjects whatsoever and another has the same number of male and female subjects. This means that only four out of twelve texts, 33%, have an over-representation of females. This is not equal. This can be explained in various ways. Perhaps it is due to what texts are included in the analysis, that it would be more equal if one would have included all texts from the three books. It could also be explained by the power structure that exists in society where males are the norm and females are deviant from it.

(37)

37

As was stated in subsection 1.3, Graham (1982, cited in Mills 2008) found that between females and males, females are often described as passive and males as active. This dichotomy was presented in subsection 2.4.1 where Hene (1984) exemplifies what characteristics are stereotype for males and females, respectively. This case of passivity and activity has been investigated through the factor of stative and dynamic verbs. In Figure 3 it is demonstrated that overall, males out-number females in both the stative verb category and in the dynamic verb category. This result did not follow the results presented in the Previous Research subsection, 3.1, and was hence not anticipated. When analysing each text and the case of male subjects connected to stative verbs it is displayed that in eight out of twelve texts, 67%, males are connected to stative verbs to a higher extent than females. In only three out of the twelve texts are females out-numbering males regarding stative verbs. This is remarkable and a result which is closer to the idea of presenting individuals instead of stereotypes.

In Table 2 I present the results on Halliday‟s (2004) terms actor/goal and senser/phenomenon. Among these terms there are goal and phenomenon which describe the passive roles in the pairs. It was indeed interesting that in both combinations with the highest number of occurrences these passive roles were played by males. This does not follow the traditional pattern regarding activity/passivity, as was commented on in section 2.4.1.

5 Discourse Analysis of Three Selected Texts

5.1 Discourse Analysis

(38)

38

According to Renkema (2004:285) gender as a discourse has developed remarkably since the middle of the 20th century. Gender as a discourse can be described as manners of demonstrating one‟s gender identity. In order to be accepted as male/female/transgender when it comes to the socially constructed gender (which was discussed in subsection 2.1) one must fulfil certain demands. Gee (1999:21) suggests that besides language these demands can be to “engage /.../ in characteristic ways of thinking, acting, interacting, valuing, feeling and believing”. In this discursive analysis on three texts from Spotlight 7/8/9 I will intend to detect possible demands through the language. The ways in which the characters in the texts are described and what they express will be the basis for these discourse analyses. As was mentioned in subsection 2.4.1 a categorisation of the stative verbs will be included here in order to investigate somewhat deeper whether there is a gender difference in the use of verbs in the present texts or not. With regard to the Gee (1999) quote above, this categorisation will demonstrate if males express emotions to the same extent as females in the chosen texts and if they are allowed to express attitudes to an equal extent.

I will include the pictures that are connected to each of the three texts in my analyses. The reason for this is that I analyse written texts where features such as body language is not possible to analyse. Pictures however also speak, and these also send signals which may contribute to establishing gender roles.

5.2 The Selected Texts

The texts chosen for the discourse analysis are “Why Me?” from Spotlight 7, “You Can‟t Control Love” from Spotlight 8 and “We Never Talked about It” from Spotlight 9. The reasons for these choices will be presented in the three following paragraphs. All three texts contain both female and male grammatical subjects. In 5.1 follows the analysis on “Why Me?”, in 5.2 one finds the analysis on “You Can‟t Control Love” and finally in 5.3 is the analysis on “We Never Talked about It”.

(39)

39

and published in 2006. The fact that it is a fiction text that is not written especially for the teaching material makes it interesting to analyse in order to intend to find out why this was chosen to be included in Spotlight 7.

From Spotlight 8 is “You Can‟t Control Love” and this is a heterosexual love story from a female point of view. This alone makes it relevant in the present study. The protagonist is female and there are many descriptions of the boy who is the goal of the girl‟s affection. In spite of this there are more stative verbs associated to a female subject than to a male and this makes it interesting to investigate in depth the gender roles presented. This text is quite long and thus offers a large amount of data.

“We Never Talked about It” is from Spotlight 9 and treats sexual relations and losing one‟s virginity, and it is told by a male protagonist. On the publishing company Natur och Kultur‟s homepage there is a piece from the Teacher‟s Guide (Lärarhandledning) on this text and it is proposed that this text is used as a base for discussing gender roles. The text includes a number of pictures which will be interesting to analyse. Finally it is a contemporary text from Slam by Nick Hornby and the fact that is was published in 2007, which is quite recently, it might be interesting to analyse what gender roles are being presented in it.

5.2.1 “Why Me?”

(40)

40

In “Why Me?” the protagonist describes how “[g]irls flashed by, all teeth and hair” (Robertsen, E., Olsson, E., Haythorpe, J. 2008:27). Boys‟ appearances are not described in the text. In the beginning of the text it seems as though the protagonist is unaware of what is going to happen and somewhat insecure to be with his brother and his friends, not knowing how to behave. The moment he understands the concept of the outing (a sort of game where when the music stops one is supposed to dance with the person in front of you) he is insulted by the girl with whom he is about to dance. Hence, once again he is weighed down. The girls‟ behaviours in the present text are not such as would be included in a stereotype description of female gender discourse. In the present text the girls insult the boy, hit the boy on the shoulder and ignore his presence. The protagonist on the other hand hides in the boys’ toilets after one of the insults. These examples of behaviour are not stereotypes. In Table 2 the results from this text are presented and it is clearly demonstrated that the girls are described as more dynamic than the boys.

In “Why Me?” there are 8 stative verbs. This is obviously a very small amount of data and no safe conclusions can be drawn from it. Of these the verbs, one belonged in the Attitudes category and it was connected to a male subject. However, there is an almost equal distribution between female and male grammatical subjects associated to stative verbs in the Relations category.

5.2.2 “You Can’t Control Love”

(41)

41

The story begins with the girl (Sophie) telling the reader about how she is in love with a boy (Julian) and how she has been so since the fourth grade. Julian is described as “one of the cool kids” (Jonas, R., Lantz, C. 2009:11), behaving badly, not attending classes, being self-righteous and pretending no to care. Sophie, however, is madly in love with him but dare not tell him. Told from a female point of view, this text includes appearance descriptions of the boy and not of the girl. The reader is told how “[h]is name was Julian and he had blue eyes and olive colored skin. Even though he only wore jeans and a t-shirt most of the time, Sophie thought he was the most handsome guy she had every laid eyes on” (Jonas, R., Lantz, C. 2009:11). The adjective handsome is very rarely used to describe a female character. Regarding accepted behaviour it seems that Sophie was not ready at first to follow her emotion regardless of what her friends thought of him. In the end, however, she finds the strength to approach him with her affection.

When Julian is with his friends it is clear that he fulfils the demands of being categorised as a real man. His bad behaviour only occurs when he is together with his friends. It says that “[Julian] was always surrounded by his loud and laughing friends. How small Sophie felt in comparison” (Jonas, R., Lantz, C. 2009:13). Although it is not specifically said whether his friends are male or female, the language certainly gives the impression that he has male friends. Being loud is part of the male gender discourse and is most often not accepted behaviour from females. The fact that Sophie feels small when passing them in the hallway also suggests that they are several males and she is one female. In the end, Julian comes to Sophie’s house to ask her out. The fact that he does not do this in school gives the impression that he is embarrassed. The reason why he might be embarrassed for having feelings and expressing them to this girl could be that it is not accepted behaviour in the male gender discourse. Since gender identity seems to be important for many individuals, one does not want to risk being questioned on whether one fulfils the demands or not. The final line is “Maybe she wasn‟t the only one who had tried to hide her feelings all this time” Jonas, R., Lantz, C. 2009:14). The message could be interpreted as follows: Julian had tried to be someone he was not because that was what he thought people expected of him.

(42)

42

number of female and male subjects, here contains 13 female and 9 male subjects. This is not equal, but more so than in the Attitudes category. The Senses category includes 5 female and 2 male subjects in this text.

5.2.3 “We Never Talked about It”

This text includes two different pictures. The first one is of a jeans‟ back pocket with three condoms sticking up from it. There is no way of categorising what is on this picture in terms of genders, since the jeans could belong to anyone.

The second picture is of four feet soles. Based on the text, the feet should belong to a boy and a girl. However, looking at the picture, one cannot see a great size difference between the feet. Also, only one foot shows silver-painted toe nails, which is stereotypically worn by girls and hence would be regarded accepted appearance in the female gender discourse. So, when taken out of its context, there is no way of knowing the genders of the owners of these feet. The image conveys an intimate moment in delightful terms and will probably give the reader a positive impression of sexual relations.

The present text is from the novel Slam (2007) by Nick Hornby. It is a story about a girl (Alicia) and a boy (Sam) where it is the girl who wants them to have sexual relations in order to make her former partner jealous. The boy on the other hand wants his first time to be more special than it turns out to be. I would argue that the gender roles in the text are not stereotype. In terms of stereotype gender behaviour, one would expect Alicia to be ashamed of her sexuality and Sam to want sex desperately in any shape or form. Sam in the story expresses how he does not respect the boys in school who always carry a condom just in case they might have the opportunity to have sexual relations. He also says about the Alicia’s former partner that “He always carried one around, and he never got to use it, because Alicia didn‟t like the way he was trying to put pressure on her” (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:13).

(43)

43

(Hornby, N. 2007, cited in Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:14). The admitting of fear is not included in the male gender discourse. What might be, however, is how the behaviour is not accepted by Alicia who calls him “soppy”. This text would most certainly create interesting discussions in a classroom however. Sam expresses: “I‟d always hoped that we might have talked about it beforehand, so that when it happened we were both prepared for it, and it would be relaxed, and special” (Jonas, R., Keay, C., Lantz, C. 2010:12). This text can be the base for discussions regarding whose responsibility it is to bring a condom, whether Alicia has sexual relations for the so called right reasons, if Sam is a „real man‟ for wanting his first time to be special, etc. This text certainly questions gender roles and may very well serve as a basis for discussing essential values in school.

When categorising the stative verbs found in the present text it was found that out of the total 46, 26 belonged in the Relations category. 20 of these 26 were connected to a male subject and 6 to a female. This is the least equal distribution in this category between the three texts in the discursive analyses. This is however also the text where the characters are acting as stereotypes to the least extent. It is interesting how this is mirrored in the results of the categorisation. Among the verbs in the Attitudes category, 11 were found that were connected to male subjects and 7 connected to female subjects. Only 2 stative verbs expressed Senses in this text and both of these were associated to male grammatical subjects.

6 Summary and Conclusion

This section will contain a summary of the results and discussions displayed in sections 3, 4 and 5. I will relate the results to the research questions presented in 2.5 and the hypotheses in 2.6. The research questions will be answered and conclusions will be made whether the hypotheses were found to be correct or incorrect. Finally I will present suggestions for further research on the topic.

My research questions were stated in subsection 2.5 and I will present the obtained answers here using the same structure as was used there.

(44)

44

more stative verbs connected to male grammatical subjects than to female grammatical subjects.

II. The guidelines of gender equality in school which are stated in subsection 1.1 say that the school should work against stereotype gender roles and also work towards equality between genders. Applied to the present study that would mean that Spotlight 7/8/9 demonstrate a variety of possible gender roles and that the gender representation is equal. As is demonstrated in subsection 3.1 the answer will have to be divided in two. Based on the present study, Spotlight 7/8/9 do not demonstrate stereotype gender roles. So the material fulfils the goals regarding a variety of gender roles. However, a great number of texts demonstrate a notable over-representation of males and the material can therefore not said to be gender equal. These conclusions however are not valid when using a three-partite gender division. When including three genders, neither of the parts of gender equality can be said to be fulfilled.

III. As was concluded in the answer to the second research question males out-number females in the overall results from the present study. The data included no representation of transgender.

Now follows the conclusions of my hypotheses regarding the research questions. These will also be presented in the same structure as the hypotheses were presented in subsection 2.6.

I. Not supported. The results of the present study did not match Frej Lysén (2009). Males are represented to a higher extent in both categories of stative and dynamic verbs.

II. Partly supported. The results from the present study fulfil the demands on variety in gender roles but not on equal representation of the genders. Again, as was discussed in the answer to the second research question, this is only true when excluding transgender from the gender categories. When included, my hypothesis was found to match the obtained results and no gender equality was found whatsoever.

(45)

45

To summarise the present study, I have used various methods in order to detect whether the gender roles displayed are stereotype or not. Nevertheless, the majority of the results point towards a variety of demonstrated gender roles. The idea of females being passive and males being active has been tested in many ways. Figure 3 demonstrates the overall results regarding verb dynamics connected to gender and it does not serve as a basis for concluding that females are described as stative/passive and males as dynamic/active. This is positive since the present result is closer to the goals on gender equality in the Swedish school. It is a problem though, that males are over-represented in the books. All three Spotlight books demonstrate how the majority of the grammatical subjects are male. Perhaps the results would change if including more texts in the analysis, but perhaps not. Two of the twelve texts included only male grammatical subjects but none included only female. This is indeed problematic. So is the fact that no representation of transgender was found at all.

In the discursive analysis I analysed what the pictures demonstrated in terms of gender representation and gender roles. I found that only one of the texts had pictures which are not stereotype. That text was also the one in which the boy and the girl were not described in terms of stereotypes. However, all texts are heteronormative and this was mirrored in most pictures as well. If the texts are heteronormative it seems adequate to connect heteronormative pictures to the texts as well. The question is instead why all texts included are heteronormative in its nature. This fact will most certainly emphasise society‟s heteronormativity and even more Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender -youths will have problematic experiences regarding their sexuality.

Overall, the three texts analysed in section 5 are not stereotype, but still including bits and pieces of this. A boy who seems embarrassed for showing and having emotions and seems to act very much in a way which makes his friends accept him as a „real man‟ really is stereotype male behaviour. However, on the other hand, girls who insult a boy, hit him and ignore him do not fit into the frame of stereotypic female behaviour. The case of a boy expressing a fear of death and thus being called „soppy‟ by the girl is an interesting point in the texts. Using this situation as a basis for discussions in the classroom would certainly be interesting.

(46)

46

References

Related documents

Similar to nouns, adjectives are used more in female magazines than in male magazines, but according to proportion, male advertisements use much more non-neutral adjectives

Källorna som kommer att användas till denna studie kommer till stor del vara nätbaserad information som till stor del ska ge läsaren kunskap om både NordCert samt varför

In this extract, the teacher, like in previous sequences, used ‘ok’ as a strong acknowledgement token when giving feedback to a student response as well as when

Orsaken till dessa är inte konstaterad, det skulle kunna ha något med linern och packningen att göra eller att kolonnen eller sprutan blivit smittad eller förstörd. Vad som talat

However, in episode 16 he is violated by Randall and his sexiness and masculinity, which is part of the Scottish representation, is broken and shows that

Vilka belopp som anges, hur ofta de krävs, vilka förväntningar som finns på utrustning och hur olika aktiviteter utformas, väntar vi oss kunna säga något om

 Redogör för hur opiater påverkar vårt belöningssystem samt vilka konsekvenser det får både under och efter bruk?.  Vad är bloddoping, vad har det för effekter och kan

Based on the findings from the previous literature, there is evident that the objective of gender mainstreaming, which is to achieve gender equality, cannot be seen as being visible