From a very young age, children are exposed to gender stereotypes through advertising, media and pop culture (Fine, 2010) to which educational materials such as school textbooks also contribute. Textbooks carry dominant social values and norms embedded within society contributing to the construction of gender norms through both textual and visual representations. Visuals are especially powerful in early childhood, as children often engage with images more directly and intuitively than with written text. Therefore, it can be said that visuals in the textbooks play crucial role in shaping gender norms in early schooling.

Turkey represents a particularly relevant case due to ongoing debates on gender equality, curriculum reform, and value education. In Turkish education system -which is highly centralized and one curriculum is applied nationwide- textbooks are centrally approved, published and distributed free of charge to students under the authority of the Ministry of National Education (MoNE). This ensures the same textbooks being used at the same grade levels throughout the country. Within this centralised system, textbook visuals constitute a particularly powerful medium through which gender norms and roles are represented and normalised for young learners. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the visuals containing gender findings in Life Sciences (Hayat Bilgisi) lesson textbooks provided by MoNE.

Life Sciences lesson was selected for this study due to its important role in supporting children’s adaptation to society by promoting learning through experience and providing essential knowledge for everyday life. It is only taught in first three grades and is a foundational lesson that provides the conceptual and pedagogical groundwork for later disciplines such as Science and Social Studies. As this subject plays a key role in shaping children’s early understandings of identity, belonging, and social relations, examining gender representation and normative gender roles within its content becomes extremely important.

Previous research conducted at international level has mostly focuses on either foreign language -particularly English as foreign language- textbooks (Handayini & Tungka, 2023; Parham, 2013; Xiong et al., 2017; Fithriani, 2022) or children’s books (Lestari & Yulindrasari, 2020; Adam & Harper, 2021). Similar to international literature, research focusing on language and children books can widely be found within the national literature (Kartal & Kocasavaş, 2024; Güney, 2016) In the context of analysing Life Lesson textbooks, researchers tends to prioritise textual analysis (Hatay Uçar & Çetinkaya, 2021) or earlier editions of textbooks (Güzel Candan & Ergen, 2014; Sarıtaş & Şahin; 2017; Karaboğa, 2020; Akcan & Türkmenoğlu, 2021), while current textbooks created under the Maarif Model and their visual content remain underexplored.

According to the given context he main research questions of the study are:

How are female and male figures represented in the visual images of Life Studies textbooks?

How are domestic and non-domestic roles distributed across genders in these images?

What types of activities, behaviors, and social roles are associated with which genders?

By addressing these questions, the study contributes to the international discussions about gender representation in educational materials by providing evidence from the Turkish context.

This study adopts a qualitative research design and employs document analysis as its primary method. Document analysis involves the systematic examination of written materials that contain information about the phenomena under investigation (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2013). Specifically, the study involves a content analysis of the visual materials presented in Life Studies textbooks. In 2024, the national curriculum in Turkey was revised with the introduction of the Century of Türkiye Maarif Model, which led to an update of school textbooks across all subjects. The implementation of the revised curriculum and textbooks has been carried out gradually. During the 2024–2025 academic year, the new textbooks were introduced at Grades 1, 5, and 9. In the 2025–2026 academic year, which is the current implementation phase, the updated textbooks are used in Grades 1 and 2 at the primary level, Grades 5 and 6 at the lower secondary level, and Grades 9 and 10 at the upper secondary level. Given this phased implementation, the sample of the study consists exclusively of Grade 1 and Grade 2 Life Studies textbooks, as these represent the most recent and fully implemented materials at the primary level under the revised curriculum. At the time of submission, the study is ongoing, and the analysis of visual representations in the textbooks is currently being conducted. The unit of analysis consists of visual images that include human figures. Images that do not depict people (e.g., objects, landscapes, symbols) are excluded from the analysis. In the later stages, a coding guide focusing on gender roles and related themes will be developed prior to the analysis in order to ensure the reliability of the study. The visuals in the textbooks will be analyzed using MAXQDA software, and the findings will be used to formulate recommendations for Life Studies textbooks. The analysis is designed to follow a two-stage process. In the first stage, images will be systematically coded and quantified to identify patterns of gender distribution across categories. In the second stage, the findings will be interpreted qualitatively to examine how visual representations may reflect or reproduce gendered norms and expectations.

As the research is still ongoing, it is not possible to present definitive findings at this stage. However, while the first-grade Life Studies textbook mainly focuses on school, family and self-awareness—resulting in a more limited range of contexts—the second-grade textbook introduces a wider variety of social settings, allowing for more diverse representations of gender roles. Based on the initial examination of the visuals in the first-grade Life Studies textbooks, several observations can be shared. For instance, some gender-typed representations remain visible, such as women being portrayed more often as teachers and men in authority-related or technical occupations. At the same time, visuals that challenge traditional gender role divisions can also be identified. Images depicting mothers and fathers jointly engaging in domestic tasks such as cooking, cleaning and childcare suggest an effort to present shared household responsibilities rather than assigning these roles exclusively to one gender. Such representations may indicate a shift towards more balanced gender norms compared to earlier textbook studies conducted in the Turkish context. Previous research in Turkey has shown gendered patterns in textbook visuals, particularly the overrepresentation of women in domestic roles and men in occupations associated with power and authority. This study, however, is expected to reveal a more nuanced and balanced portrayal of gender roles. Should this tendency be confirmed, the study will contribute to the literature by highlighting the potential impact of recent curriculum reforms on the visual construction of gender norms in early childhood education.

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