Gender, critical pedagogy, and textbooks: Understanding teachers’ (lack of) mediation of the hidden curriculum in the EFL classroom

Abstract

Gender contents, textual or visual, in instructional materials can be considered as a hidden curriculum, and may either hinder or advance equality. How teachers interpret and respond to this hidden curriculum in their classroom discourse, however, can play a crucial role in creating positive change. This research seeks to understand how teachers work with gender-sensitive contents in a newly-published English textbooks series for lower secondary education in Vietnam. To what extent are teachers aware of genderedness in textbooks, and how do they respond to it? Approaching gender as a social construct, using multi-dimensional methods, the study critically explores teachers’ experiences with the textbooks – their classroom practices and underlying perceptions – through 18 classroom observations and 12 follow-up interviews with 12 teachers in four lower secondary schools. Results indicate that neither the hidden curriculum of gender was recognized nor a critical mediation of it was practised. Gender content, whether ‘traditional’ or ‘progressive’, was largely absent from classroom discourse, as teachers prioritized transferring linguistic knowledge. Little space was allocated for promoting students’ critical thinking and self-reflections, including those about gender-related content. Teachers did not often pay full attention to different nuances and dimensions of gender issues, while sometimes their teaching design and interaction were found to be affected by their own bias – consciously and unconsciously. The study reveals that although teachers were later willing to reconstruct their perceptions and future practices, and were able to concretize their pedagogical intentions, enacting teacher agency in relation to critical pedagogy and gender equality in the contemporary English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom in Vietnam might remain a challenge. Based on the study’s findings, pedagogical implications that may enable teachers to be potential agents of change were suggested.

Using critical pedagogy in English education: Disjunctures between pre-service teachers' preparation and opportunities for implementation

“…These are gender concerns that are often part of the hidden curriculum. Students may miss interrogating them if teachers do not create opportunities for incidental learning and for conversations about gender (Vu & Pham, 2022). Mendelowitz's (2017) critical writing pedagogy helped pre-service teachers of English to put gender on the agenda when they were writing about self and fictionalised others.…”

Challenges in Developing an ELT Primary School English Grammar Curriculum in China

“…Secondly, regarding the cultural content syllabus, most existing studies have focused on teaching Chinese as a foreign language (Sun & Zhang, 2021). Although these studies can also provide ideas and references for developing a Chinese cultural content syllabus for primary school English teaching, there is still a need to build a local cultural content syllabus for primary school English teaching (Vu & Pham, 2022). Moreover, the existing cultural content syllabus is mostly based on the theoretical level, and the practical level also focuses mainly on the classification of cultural items, and less on the importance and competence requirements of cultural items, making the syllabus less specific and comprehensive (Hasram et al, 2021;R.…”

Critical Pedagogy: Analyzing Social Power and Cultural Identity in Moroccan Efl High School Gateway to English 2 Textbook

“…Curriculum designers should consider effective criteria to design the five skills of teaching and learning , they should relate the target language to students' real life and experiences by stressing more emphasis on sociological imagination (MILLS, 1959) and the implementation of critical pedagogy (Freire, P., & Macedo, 1987).In this regard, Dr Hiba Ibrahim stated that : "In the Moroccan context, education is rarely used as an act of empowerment. The prevalent model of education in most Moroccan high schools and universities is the banking model of education" (Hiba, 2020).In this regard, a lot of research has been conducted about critical pedagogy and textbooks ( (Nelsen, 2021) (Nelsen, 2021) (Vu & Pham, 2022)(Gee Hickman, 2022) (Ouahani & Hiba, 2023) (Said, 2023)) .Furthermore, a lot of research has been conducted in Moroccan context about textbooks, ideology of language and the banking model and teaching English from a social perspective (Hiba, 2016) , in addition, a study was conducted by professor Sakale Sana on "Students' Perceptions of Textbooks in Moroccan High Schools" (Sakale, 2020) , in her study findings she said that : " students revealed their need to use non-textbook focused material, and to be given a chance to select topics of their own choice and that are of interest to them instead of being imposed classroom material. Correspondingly, students overtly express a need to use more extra-curriculum activities and authentic material too.…”