Master of Arts

Studies have long documented that the schooling experience is often different for pupils of different backgrounds. This experience has perpetuated different realities for different groups of pupils, including different gender realities.

One major way in which the schooling experience has been differentiated is through the differentiation of teaching and learning materials. This study will examine the concepts of leadership that Social Studies instructional materials have transmitted to pupils in Primary Three and Four.

In Singapore, Social Studies at the secondary level is one subject that has had observable differences in teaching and learning materials. The secondary Social Studies syllabus has differentiated curricular aims for students from the four different academic tracks – the Integrated Programme (IP), the mainstream Express (E), Normal Academic N(A) and the Normal Technical N(T) tracks. Such differentiation has led to a sorting of pupils into different citizenship roles based on their abilities. At primary level, ability-based differentiation is not visible as there is just one Social Studies syllabus. However, this does not mean that there is no differentiation in Social Studies textbooks.

Studies have documented that although Singapore has taken steps to balance gender portrayals in teaching and learning materials, one subject in which such balance is not observed is Social Studies. Researchers suggest that Singapore’s steps to improve gender balance in school textbooks were not reflected in Social Studies.

Given that Singapore has consistently performed well in achieving gender parity in the areas of economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment and health but achieved a low score for political participation, Primary Three and Four Social Studies readers and textbooks were analysed to find out the concepts of leadership that they portrayed.

The study has shown that there is a higher visibility of males than females in general and even fewer references to female leaders. Women are also mainly portrayed as secondary characters in the Primary Three readers and in stereotypical roles such as victims, mothers and wives in the Primary Four Social Studies textbooks. There are also significantly higher linguistic references to males and male leaders. Thus, there has been little improvement in balancing gender representations in Social Studies textbooks as compared with the Social Studies textbooks published before the year 2000.

Given increasing research studies on teachers’ use of the gendered texts to balance the influence of gendered portrayals, this study also conducted a questionnaire with teachers to find the level of teacher mitigation. The responses suggested that teachers are aware of the existence of gender bias in the textbooks. However, no significant mitigation was observed. This was due to a range of reasons from time constraints to teachers’ personal beliefs.

Nevertheless, teacher mitigation is important and it is suggested that teachers be trained to be more critical users of textbooks and to be taught to balance gender portrayals in texts through classroom intervention. However, such mitigation cannot be relied upon solely to balance the impact of gendered representations and a revision of the curricular materials to increase coverage of female leadership is also necessary.

This study thus shows that Social Studies texts remain male-centred and place women outside of the role of leadership. Teacher mitigation is also not definite and consistent. Thus, pupils remain exposed to viewing leadership as a male trait and the male leader as the norm in society.