Dose Fourth Grade Social Studies' Textbooks Support Saudi Vision 2030?

Textbooks are an important aspect of formal education, and education and gender-related research clearly demonstrates that "within schools, textbooks play a significant role in the gender socialization of children" (Lee & Collins, 2010, p. 121). The goal of the current study is to look at textbooks that are used in Saudi social studies classes and provide a critical discourse analysis of how context and visuals are used to present gender. The present study focuses the representation of gender and Saudi government policy in fourth grade textbooks from the 2019-2020 school year. Questions guiding this study were: 1. What kinds of words choices are present in fourth grade Saudi social studies textbooks? 2. Do they represent or reinforce any prevailing ideology, or stereotype in terms of men and women in order to support the Saudi Vision 2030? 3. How are genders represented in Saudi fourth grade social studies textbooks? The results indicated that the majority of the illustrations and text examples were dominated by men and displayed men characters in dominant roles and women characters in passive, domestic, or subservient roles. This suggests that, while great discursive and policy progress has been made toward gender parity or equity, this has not automatically led to an enhanced position for women as workers, citizens, or family members in the curriculum. The findings indicate the continued need for studies of the gendered nature of knowledge and the role education can play in re-shaping gender identities and gender hierarchies. This study is valuable because, to date, no studies have explored gender representations in the Saudi social studies textbooks. A possible direction for future research is the continued charting of gender representations in Saudi Arabia's school curriculum as well as in other countries in the region. For example, it would be enlightening to compare findings in the current study with countries that surround Saudi Arabia to identify commonalities and similarities. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]