Textbooks convey essentialist messages about sex and gender, study of widely used U.S. books shows
After analyzing six of the most widely used high school biology textbooks in the United States, researchers report these texts depart from established scientific knowledge about sex and gender, instead portraying these categories in a manner consistent with “essentialism” – the assumption that categories of living things have underlying “essences.” To date, what high school biology textbooks have taught adolescents about sex and gender has gone unexamined in studies of the influences of essentialism in this space. The essentialist view on sex and gender is informed by several assumptions. Scientific research on sex and gender is inconsistent with these assumptions, yet they are commonly held. Although sex (a biological phenomenon) and gender (a sociocultural phenomenon) are carefully distinguished among biologists who study these phenomena, this distinction is often absent in public discourse, where sex and gender are typically conflated. If biology textbooks also conflate the two phenomena, they would be “lending authority to an uninformed lay view that is out of step with well-established scientific knowledge,” write Brian Donovan et al. in their Policy Forum.
Donovan and colleagues investigated high school biology textbooks as a sociocultural source of essentialist ideas about sex and gender, focusing on books adopted in at least two of the following highly populous states: California, Texas, New York, and Florida. They identified six textbooks published between 2009 and 2016 that they estimate are collectively used by 66% of introductory high school biology classes across the U.S. The authors analyzed select chapters of these textbooks, that discussed both genetics and sex or gender, looking at whether sex and gender were explicitly differentiated in a given paragraph, as one analysis. Of the paragraphs coded in this category, none differentiated between sex and gender, they report, meaning these texts inappropriately conflate between a biological phenomenon (sex) and a sociocultural one (gender). Further analyses show that textbooks underemphasize the vast amount of continuous variability within sex/gender groups, an idea consistent with those who hold essentialist views (who tend to believe that individuals within a sex/gender group are uniform). Altogether, their results led them to suggest that the textbooks studied convey essentialist messages about sex/gender. “Biology education has long been criticized for presenting an oversimplified view of genetic inheritance,” say Donovan and team. “The present results highlight another important way in which biology education falls short… More optimistically, the present results also suggest how textbooks could be changed to avoid these undesirable consequences.” The authors highlight several aspects of current textbooks that could be revised.
JOURNAL
Science
ARTICLE TITLE
Sex and gender essentialism in textbooks
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
23-Feb-2024
High school biology textbooks do not provide students with a comprehensive view of the science of sex and gender
Textbooks used by a majority of introductory U.S. biology classes paint a “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” image, running afoul of scientific evidence
The teaching of science has long generated controversy in the United States—from evolution in the early 20th century to climate change today. Debates have also often emerged around how textbooks teach concepts related to social groups, and in particular whether they gloss over complex realities in ways that may mislead students in providing scientific instruction.
In an effort to investigate this matter, a team of researchers examined how biology textbooks in the U.S. instruct students about sex and gender. Its findings showed that these concepts are frequently described in ways that are at odds with scientific research.
The study, which appears in the journal Science, raises questions about the accuracy of high school biology curricula and offers a roadmap for their reform in ways that reflect scientific knowledge.
“The findings serve as a call to action—it is important that the high school biology curriculum is revised so that it reflects accurate scientific knowledge rather than misguided assumptions that may foster gender stereotyping and discrimination,” says Andrei Cimpian, a professor in the Department in the Psychology at New York University and one of the paper’s senior authors.
The study, which also included researchers from BSCS Science Learning and the University of Texas at Austin, examined whether textbooks communicated “essentialism” about sex and gender. Essentialism is a widespread, but scientifically inaccurate, view rooted in the idea that there is a genetic “essence” that makes women and men the way they are. Because of their assumed distinct genetic essences, women and men are also assumed to be discrete, non-overlapping groups—not just in terms of reproductive anatomy, but also in terms of their psychology and behavior.
The research published in Science set out to characterize how textbooks describe sex, which is a complex set of biological features related to reproduction, and gender, which is a socially constructed interpretation of the biological phenomenon of sex. The scientific consensus is that sex and gender are distinct phenomena and that both are inconsistent with the essentialist view that is common among the general public.
Its analysis of six textbooks—published between 2009 and 2016 and used in an estimated two-thirds of high school introductory biology classes across the U.S.—found that none of the textbooks differentiated between the concepts of sex and gender, despite the clear distinction made between them in the scientific literature.
In addition, consistent with the idea that textbooks communicate essentialist views to students, more paragraphs described people of the same sex or gender as uniform rather than different from each other—whereas in reality differences are the norm. Women differ from each other substantially—in physical traits, personality, and preferences—as do men.
The studied textbooks also suggested that variation in one or more genes inherited through the sex chromosomes was the most plausible explanation for variation within and between gender or sex groups—overlooking the key role of environmental factors and instead reinforcing the mistaken notion of a genetic “essence.”
“Overall, the ways in which textbooks described sex and gender are more consistent with essentialism than with the scientific consensus on these topics,” explains Catherine Riegle-Crumb, a professor in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the paper’s senior authors.
Prior research has found that essentialist assumptions have a range of negative consequences, including gender stereotyping, the dehumanization of women, and support for gender discriminatory practices. The embedding of these assumptions in biology textbooks, then, raises concerns that students are learning about phenomena in ways not backed by science.
“Our study suggests that the material that adolescents are exposed to in school textbooks might itself—even if unintentionally—be a source of essentialist ideas,” says Brian Donovan, a senior research scientist at BSCS Science Learning, a nonprofit organization in Colorado Springs, and one of the paper’s senior authors.
“It’s not unusual for textbooks to discuss ideas that were considered accurate earlier in the history of science and are now known to be incomplete. But essentialism is not a scientific model—it’s an overly simplistic lay view that is at odds with the scientific consensus on sex and gender,” adds Donovan. “It should have no place in the biology curriculum.”
The study, the first content analysis to explore whether high school biology textbooks communicate information that is consistent with essentialist views about sex and gender, was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (DRL-1956152, DRL-1956119, and DRL-1956167).
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JOURNAL
Science
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Content analysis
ARTICLE TITLE
Sex and gender essentialism in textbooks
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
23-Feb-2024
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