The Representation of Women in the Photographs of Introductory Human Geography Textbooks

Abstract

Research indicates that textbooks play an important role in determining course content and influencing students’ impressions of a discipline. Photographs are particularly powerful because they appear as actual representations, and students can often recall them better than text. This study examines the photographs of six introductory human geography textbooks to evaluate the representation of women. Compared to Mayer’s (1989) study, the quantity of photographs overall and those of females have increased, however photograph content depicts women in essentially traditional, passive roles that are treated as a norm. Consequently, these textbooks miss engaging students in meaningful discussions about gender and about female roles in society across cultures.

Keywords:

• Textbooks
• introductory human geography
• photographs
• women
• gender

Acknowlegments

We would like to thank Dr. Susan Hume and Dr. Timothy Sullivan for their thoughtful comments on early drafts of this paper, and we also thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.

Notes

1 We have generally used the terms “female” and “male” (rather than “woman” and “man”) to describe the individuals represented in textbook photographs because the images include people from broad age ranges.

2 Photographs were categorized based upon a traditional classification of sex/gender. We could not attempt to determine an individual’s gender identity. As the understanding of gender identity evolves and non-binary gender representation becomes more common in textbooks, the study’s findings will need to be updated.

3 While we argue that photographs could be more thoughtfully selected, we acknowledge the constraints of textbook publishing: the process of selecting, producing and publishing textbook photographs can be complex and expensive, which can accordingly influence the photographs that are included in any given textbook.