Gender and Race Representation in Introductory Psychology Textbook Images: A Comparison Between Open Educational Resources and Commercial Textbooks

Background One way to improve educational equity for historically marginalized student groups is to include more representation of diversity in course materials. The Open Education movement emphasizes the customizability of openly licensed material as a way to diversify course content. Given that textbook images are often the first content that students encounter, it is essential to evaluate the representation of diverse images in course materials. Objective The current study assessed the current level of diversity in images in both openly licensed and commercial Introductory Psychology textbooks. Method We coded all images ( N = 1,928) from 10 Introductory Psychology textbooks (six commercial, four openly licensed) for their representation of race and gender. Results Women were underrepresented in textbook images compared to men, and People of Color were underrepresented compared to White people. Commercial text images included more women and POC than openly licensed texts. Conclusion Historically marginalized students may not see themselves depicted in Introductory Psychology textbook images, which may lead to lower engagement. Teaching Implication Given that images in course materials may not accurately reflect the diversity of our students, psychology teachers could address this by including diverse images and/or engaging their students in open pedagogy to increase the diversity of images presented.