Abstract

Visual analysis of gender portrayal in school textbooks are often limited in corpus and subject areas. Most studies rely on a small number of textbooks, which restricts them in capturing broader patterns. At the same time, the scholarship frequently focuses on history or language textbooks, overlooking other subject areas. In this study, I address these limitations by analyzing a substantially larger corpus of textbooks across all school subjects.

This work analyzes visual gender representation in Uzbekistan’s school textbooks through a combination of quantitative and semiotic image analysis. The corpus comprises 82 textbooks for lower secondary-general education (Grades 5 to 9) approved by the Ministry of Public Education of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2020-2021 academic year. The preliminary findings are consistent with the results of similar studies conducted in other national contexts and point to three main patterns: 1) There is a significant gap in the numerical representation of women and men, favoring men; 2) Occupational representation in textbook images strongly reinforces gendered social roles – women are often depicted in caregiving roles while men are portrayed in authoritative positions; 3) Although there is not significant variation across subject areas, languages textbooks, especially those developed with the help of European actors/donors, demonstrate a more balanced representation and fewer gender stereotypes. As one of the first studies to conduct a systematic visual analysis of school textbooks in the Central Asian context, this research contributes to broader comparative discussions by offering cross-subject and cross-grade insights into gender representation.