Abstract:
The increasing visibility of gender based violence in South Africa is one indicator of the
insidious gender inequalities rampant in the country. We are socialised to internalise and
reproduce unequal gendered power relations required to maintain a heteronormative
patriarchal society. Taking cognisance of education as a tool for socialisation, this study
aimed to engage critically with the discourse and representation of gender within seven
textbooks for the subject Life Orientation for grade 7. The study made use of feminist critical
discourse analysis, critical pedagogy, Black feminist theory as well as decolonial theory to
provide a thorough interrogation of the discourse of gender in the textbooks. The broad aim
of this study was to contextualise gender in the Life Orientation textbooks for grade 7 by
interrogating how the discourse on gender in the textbooks potentially socialises learners to
act in complicity or to subvert a heteronormative patriarchal social order.
This study revealed that the textbooks in question employ a variety of mechanisms to
maintain a heteronormative patriarchal worldview, and each publication upheld these
discourses to varying degrees. Some of the discourses used to sustain this perspective
included the stereotypical gendered representations of boys and girls, queer invisibility, male
autonomy versus a lack of female autonomy, failure to problematize rape culture and
consistently portraying girls as the victims of male predators. This study further found that
there was a significant lack of opportunities provided in the texts for critical interrogation of
hegemonic discourses, as many of these discourses were presented as self-evident.
