Gender representation in early readers: Are women and men equal?

The Education Bureau (EDB) of Hong Kong has been promoting a reading culture in schools with the aim of enhancing students’ language proficiency and learning capacity. To support schools to acquire diverse and appropriate reading materials, a recommended reading list is provided by EDB for schools to establish crosscurricular linkage so as to enrich students’ experience of language learning through activities in contexts related to other Key Learning Areas (e.g. Mathematics, Technology Education). Given that early readers play an important role in the socialization of children’s lives and their gender development, the aim of the present study is to examine how the two genders are constructed in the readers recommended by EDB for Key Stage 1 learners (Primary 1-3). Both the content and the language of the texts were examined to investigate how male and female characters are portrayed to show the experiential, relational and expressive values. The value of the study is that it will help heighten people’s awareness of the power of book authors to position the two genders through content selection, language choices and visual images. Copyright © 2018 SEAMEO RELC.