This talk topicalizes methodological challenges in the (multimodal) analysis of gender and gendered discourse in EFL textbooks. While most research engages in top-down approaches, this project presents a bottom-up version, discusses its challenges and calls for a combined perspective in analysing gender(ed) discourses and relating them to linguistic traces.
Even though the focus of research on language education in the context of gender and sexuality has shifted from textbook analysis to classroom interaction (Sunderland 2015), the importance of textbook as key teaching materials has persisted especially in the light of governmentally approved standardised assessments. Argued from a social constructivist perspective, representations of (non-normative) gender and sexual identities influence learner motivation and adolescent identity construction and should thus be considered an epistemological site for the study of hegemonic or alternative discourses (Sunderland 2004; Pawelczyk and Pakuła 2015; Motschenbacher 2016). Yet, there seems to be a discrepancy between the relevance of textbooks and the number of critical linguistic textbook analyses. Previous criticism regarding a lack of in-depth micro analysis, transparency, systematicity or replicability, as well as the complexities of (multimodal) textbook research on gender and sexuality (Mustapha and Mills 2015; Sunderland 2015; Weninger and Kiss 2015), thereby hint at the challenges of developing an applicable research design. This current research sets out to devise a multi-perspectival and multimodal research design that also, in response to accusations of researcher subjectivity, separates descriptive gender from interpretative gendered discourses. Unlike previous research within a post-structuralist framework that has primarily applied top-down methods to identify gender(ed) discourses, this project embarked on developing systematic categories for a bottom-up analysis. While this proved difficult, the research process has revealed advantages and disadvantages of both approaches and explored the relations of linguistic traces and larger constructs such as discourses or interpretative repertoires. Consequently, an integrative and mutually informing model alternating between micro- and macro-perspectives seems most promising to gain complex and in-depth insights into the presence of gender(ed) discourses on various levels. This presentation will synthesise the research findings and insights to open a debate on possible theoretical and methodological innovation in the field of textbook research.
