Gender Stereotypes and Bias in School Mathematics Textbooks: A Systematic Literature Review

Textbooks, as essential learning resources, significantly influence students’ development, values, beliefs, and cultural understanding. They shape gender socialization and societal norms, imparting gender roles, identities, and biases. Creating gender-neutral textbooks necessitates comprehensive analysis, prompting numerous local and international studies on gender stereotypes and biases in educational materials. This review paper aims to examine five specific aspects of the selected research: the portrayal of gender in (i) illustrations and examples, (ii) language and terminology, (iii) sports and games, (iv) professional and activity representation, and (v) cultural and regional differences in the portrayal of gender in mathematics textbooks. A wide-ranging strategy was employed to search and identify research papers from Web of Science, Scopus, Springer Link, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, and ERIC. The chosen papers span the years 2003 to 2024. Out of 265 results generated, 55 publications representing 35 selected papers were chosen and themed for discussion, investigating gender stereotypes and biases in mathematics textbooks at the school level. The study’s findings lay the groundwork for policy changes at the state or national level, ensuring the development and implementation of guidelines that foster gender-neutral content in educational materials. These results are also valuable for textbook development agencies, authors, and educators in creating a gender-sensitive curriculum and textbooks. Ultimately, the implications of this research will help future researchers identify areas for further study.