286 American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) ISSN (Print) 2313-4410, ISSN (Online) 2313-4402 © Global Society of Scientific Research and Researchers http://asrjetsjournal.org/ Gender Roles Discrimination in the Moroccan EFL Textbook Discourse Mohamed Jaafari* EFL Teacher, Centre des Classes Préparatoires aux Grandes Écoles, BD 20 Aout, Beni Mellal 23000, Morocco Email: jaafarimd@yahoo.com Abstract The present paper examines a major feature of gender representation in the discourse underlying the current Moroccan EFL textbooks officially employed in high schools. Actually, the paper draws on parts of the findings brought about by a research paper conducted in the fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctorate at the faculty of Letters in Beni Mellal, Morocco. The study has quantitatively processed 252 pieces of the gendered dialogues and talk exchanges along with the related illustrations embedded in eight textbooks. A closer analysis of what and how the language is used in talk and context in addition to the roles the genders assume recursively in the different spheres of life such as occupation, household and social spheres makes it clear that a persistent traditional gender ideology is prevailing implicitly and explicitly in the pedagogical discourse of the Moroccan EFL textbooks. The implication of the results is proved for English language professionals, human rights activists and the improvement of society as a whole. Keywords: Textbook; gender; discrimination; discourse; power. 1. Introduction School textbook designers regularly employ imaginary characters to give social shape to the ideas embedded in linguistic forms. To seem real, these characters are given names and perform verbal and behavioural acts that fit their gender type, age and social status. Such a strategy is meant to provide a social context to the language learned and to make the conversations more authentic and thus more convincing. It is for this reason that the school textbook is valued as a devise either to reproduce and reinforce the socially rooted codes of system, behaviour and values or to socialize the young generations with the newly established ones. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Corresponding author. http://asrjetsjournal.org/ mailto:jaafarimd@yahoo.com American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 287 Furthermore, van Dijk as a prominent leader within Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) tradition critically states that “The knowledge and attitudes expressed and conveyed by such learning materials, again, reflect a dominant consensus, if not the interests of the most powerful groups and institutions of societies” [1: 48]. Hence, textbooks are not only vehicles of language instructions and learning, but also devices in the hands of hegemonic groups for orientating belief and positioning social and gender roles. Such influential aspect of the school textbook is the focal point for this investigation. Bearing this fact in mind, the question raises as to the way textbook designers construct gender and assign women and males different roles in the dialogues and illustrations. More specifically, this paper postulates about the way the Moroccan EFL textbooks only reproduce implicitly and explicitly the traditional gender roles existing at macro level of the society. To test this hypothesis, this study [2], quantitatively analyzing 252 dialogues with their concomitant illustrations in eight EFL textbooks [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10], should account for the setting and the context where females and males are portrayed, act or produce their speech. To pave the way for such an endeavour, basic research has to be conducted to specify and discuss the overall typology of the social and occupational roles assigned to different genders as social entities. 2. Preliminary statistics The table below is meant to provide numerical data concerning occupational and household roles that the characters perform in the textbooks. The table is as follows. Table 1: Gender representation in occupational and household roles . Conspicuous enough from the table is the fact that the overall distribution in the dialogues of the occupational and household roles gives more visibility to men than women, 57 and 39 respectively. Such preliminary conclusion is to bring proofs to the assumption that males are more represented than females in the dialogues. Deeper analysis of distinct spheres in the following pages will bring about ampler implications on gender discrimination in the Moroccan EFL textbooks. F M F M F M F M F M F M F M F M F M Doctor/ Pharmacist 2 5 7 3 2 1 5 15 Journalist/ Interviewer 2 1 2 4 3 5 4 4 6 6 3 24 16 Businesspeople 2 2 2 2 Scientist/ Interviewee 1 3 3 2 4 3 7 3 6 8 24 Parent 4 3 2 4 2 2 1 1 1 13 7 Couple 2 2 2 4 2 Nurse/ Secretary 3 2 1 1 6 1 Teacher 2 1 2 1 1 2 5 Salesperson 2 1 1 6 1 4 7 Waiter 2 2 1 2 3 Coach 2 1 2 1 Police 1 1 1 1 Cook 1 1 39 57 Ticket2 Gate2 InsightsTotals Total Frequency Occupational & Household Role Outlook Visa Window Gate1 Ticket1 American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 288 3. Occupational roles Astonishing enough as a fact of clear sexism is the distribution of doctor roles to different genders. In fact, male doctors outnumber female doctors by more than the half. While male doctors are described as active, examining people and producing prescriptions, female doctors are only heard as titles, piece of information about secondary characters or illustration. One exception is Diana’s female doctor. She gives, in a dialogue, valuable information to Diana about her infected eye and advises her to see an eye specialist [10: 110]. Mrs. Itry as a main character is also a doctor [10: 49]; the learner hears about her profession only in the beginning of the book and from her fellow doctors at the hospital, but she is never seen at work. Rather, she is present in the dialogues as a wife, mother or a fellow female friend. Furthermore, there are more males as scientists and specialists than females, 24 to 8 correspondingly. The implication is that the male young learners rather than female ones have more opportunities to identify with socially high-ranked occupations such as doctors scientists and specialists. More important is the case study of the distribution of the job of journalist to different genders. It is true that female journalists outnumber those who are males, 22 to 16 correspondingly. But even though all journalists are intellectual people, the competence of the female journalists in the dialogues is juxtaposed with that of the male scientists, representing expertise and knowledge. Male scientists and specialists interviewed count 24 in contrast with 8 females only. For illustration, in Insights [8], 7 main mixed gender dialogues out of 9 are initiated by female reporters. This means that women as journalists enjoy the prominence of appearing first in the dialogues. However, an analysis of the sum of these female initiated interviews in the textbooks would give more enlightenment. Below is an example: Cynthia Levin: Dr Wilson, can you briefly define humor to our listeners? Steve Wilson: Well, humor is a part of our humanity. Human being is the only creatures on earth that can laugh and smile. When we show that we have a sense of humor, when we do laugh and smile, we're doing something that is exclusively human. People who are serious and uptight and won't crack a smile are not revealing the humanity that helps us to connect to others. As Victor Borge, the Danish pianist-comedian said “laughter is the shortest distance between two people" [7: 43]. Activity: B. Listen to this interview and choose the best answer. 1. This interview was given in a. a TV talk show. b. a radio programme. C. a magazine. 2. In the interview, Dr. Steve Wilson a. speaks about his own experience as a specialist in humour and laughter. b. shows the negative sides of humour and laughter. c. talks about the importance of humour and laughter. C.Listen to the interview again and say whether the following statements are true or false. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 289 1. For Dr Wilson, human beings are not the only creatures to own the ability to laugh and smile. 2. In his interview, Dr. Wilson believes that laughter and humour can be used interchangeably. 3. According to Dr. Wilson, using humour with some people in some particular situations can be inappropriate. [7: 78] The assumption drawn from the extracted exchanges destabilizes the preliminary meaning conveyed by the results from the quantification of the frequencies of female visibility at the onset of the dialogues. Journalist or reporter as a career fulfilled by female gender is quite gratifyingly respectful, but in the textbooks, it is recursively juxtaposed to socially and intellectually higher professions that male characters have such as scientist and specialist. So, although females are given the prominence of initiating considerable amount of dialogues, males are depicted as a source of knowledge from which females seek information and, thus, receive high unconscious and conscious attention from the young learners. One reason is that the interviews are exploited as main reading or listening activities in the unit. Second, the questions incorporated in the follow-up activities invite the learner to focus on the utterances delivered by the interviewees who are males. Figure 1: Female journalist and male interviewee [8: 12] Figure 2: Journalist interviewing Dr Farouk [9: 64] American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 290 Third, males’ talk turns in the adjacency pairs are longer than females’. These latter are limited to question forms or requests and do not make any additional move to redirect ongoing talk. Rather, females “end up being lectured to and looking like a novice under a school- master's tutelage” [11: 142]. The female interviewers make no third part in the adjacency pairs to acknowledge, expand, elaborate and present challenges to current talk to show expertise on the topic discussed. It will be useful at this point to infer that such results imply that there is parallelism between the order of genders in the system of turn-taking and the advantage distribution in the society’s system [12]. The study of extracts from the other textbooks is to bring about additional clarification on the subject. 4. Gendered social roles By contrast, females appear more frequently as mothers than males do as fathers. That is, there are 17 instances for mothers in contrast with only 9 for fathers. In addition to that, females are recurrently appointed to very specific jobs such as nurses and secretaries. Such facts lead to the assumption that the textbooks tend to reproduce the stereotyped image that women fit more for caring and social related jobs than scientific and effort consuming ones. Finally, the overall distribution in the dialogues of the occupational and household roles gives more visibility to men than women, 57 and 39 respectively. The report above, having brought quantified data on gender discrimination, has not only broadened and consolidated the analysis but also form strong basis for the ensuing interpretive discussion. Certainly, the following arguments highlights the relation between these statistics and the behavioral changes and attitudes of men and women as characters which fit the expectations the society have for these social roles. Very conspicuous in the textbooks are the instances of biased gendering of social roles. That is, the spheres of activities, interests and obligations of women and men are completely separated. Kramer comments on the phenomenon saying that “The belief in separate spheres justified relegating women to the home and assigning men to economic outside it. At the same time, it preserved men’s authority in the family, despite the physical segregation of the sexes” [13: 29]. The segregation in gender spheres is mostly apparent in the Moroccan textbooks that use family stories, mainly Visa, Windows and Ticket1 [3, 4, 10]. It is true; the family-tree strategy endows the learning material with authenticity and liveliness. However, the strategy may also reveal the conscious and unconscious conception the textbook designers have for gender roles, knowing that “the most common forms of gender bias come from unintentional acts by teachers, teaching methods and textbooks/resources” [14: 1]. In Window [10], Mr. and Mrs. Itry’s household roles are gender-based. They are living in a modern world and they abide by the values and social codes prevailing in such a western community as London. Mrs. Itry is a working woman, a doctor. She even helps her husband from home publicizing Moroccan carpets to women [10: 86]. They give their children permission to organize mixed gender parties at home [10: 90]. However, many are the instances where they fill in stereotyped gender roles. Although Mrs. Itry is a doctor at a hospital in London, the image the reader has of her is that of a mother and a wife. Mrs. Itry is a major character appearing in the main dialogues of the textbook. An emphasis on any particular aspect of her personality, activities or interests is an implied appeal to the learner to identify with her and thus internalize the values she stands for. In the textbook, Mrs. Itry’s family role as a woman caring for her children, husband and household is prioritized over American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 291 her professional role. Rather, this latter is altogether absent. The following discussion testifies to such assumptions. The reader is introduced to the Itry family [10: 10] by means of an exercise to explore a picture of the family members gathered at home in London. In figure 3, the family is shown to preserve the traditions of a typically modern Moroccan nuclear family. The parents are dressed in a Moroccan way. Mrs. Itry is standing by her children, Hamid and Zaina. She is surely supervising their learning as they surf the net while Mr. Itry is holding a tray with a typically Moroccan teapot and tea cups. It seems that he has himself prepared tea for the family. This is a good image of the happy family that conveys both conservation of homeland values and adaptation to the values of the host country. On the immediate next page, the reader comes to know more about Mrs. Itry’s overwhelming motherhood facet. She is complaining to the policewoman about her missing son, Hamid [10: 11]. She is crying. Immediately, the reader forgets completely about Mrs. Itry’s professional role as a doctor and concentrates on the emotional side of her personality. The following list of dialogue situations illustrates the different moments of stereotyped roles. Information about the type of dialogue as to whether it is main or subordinate, page and implication of the event are also provided. Figure 3: The Itrys at home in London [10: 10] 1. Main: Mrs. Itry and Mrs. Baker are talking about carpets + pictures. Implication: Women’s concern for household [10: 86]. 2. Exercise: Mr. Itry wants to cook, and asks about availability of ingredients in the kitchen. Implication: It is the responsibility of women to know what’s lacking in the kitchen [10: 76]. 3. Main: Aicha is fed up with technology and modern tools of communication. Implication: Female unfamiliarity with TICs [10: 73]. 4. Exercise: Peter and Hamid are talking past activities, Hamid was at the gym, but Beth was with her mother at the super market. Implication: Female passion for shopping [10: 75]. 5. Main: Zaina and Mrs Baker are preparing for the party, making shopping lists. Implication: Females are more sociable than males, passion for household activities [10: 73]. 6. Main: mother and daughter are talking about littering keeping clean. Implication: Female interest for clean environment [10: 121]. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 292 7. Main: Kim and Diana are talking about music Reggae and Rap. Implication: Female and male inclination for music [10: 98]. 8. Main: Anna is practising soccer. Implication: Football is not male concern only [10: 62]. 9. Main: I know that. I know you were with her (Beth) Come on, mum. Implication: She feels jealous of Beth [10: 73]. The analysis above is a specimen of the interpretive analysis in depth which probes profoundly into one single instance of biased gender representation. Such an instance concerns the delineation of a character in a way that reflects the social expectation and stereotyped female gender role. No matter how intellectual and cultivated a woman is, to be accepted in society, she has to fulfill socially deeply-rooted roles at home and community. The other textbooks aren’t immune of such an inclination as the following section shows. 5. Gender roles in activities Stereotyped gender roles prevail also in the other textbooks. Shopping is one of the habits that women are biased for in dialogues and illustrations. The following are the instances depicting women spending time and enjoying shopping together. This theme concerns mostly the common core textbooks. In Outlook, females occupy most space and dialogues in unit three entitled “Our Shopping Habits”. Figure 4 is illustrating the first main dialogue in the unit. It introduces the theme and the vocabulary related to shopping. Figure 5 is accompanying the second main dialogue in the unit which introduces basic grammatical points needed to talk about shopping, that is the comparative adjectives. All learners have to go through these dialogues, because they are the cornerstones of the learning in this unit. Figure 4: Mouna at the clothes shop [9: 33] Figure 5: Pamela at the shoe shop [9: 34] American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 293 There are three minor short exchanges in the same unit revolving around buying [9: 33]. These are used as fill- in exercises to practise communicative expressions. One of the risks is that the teacher may overlook one or two of them and consequently skip them if s/he sees the students have mastered the linguistic items. One of these short dialogues is illustrated with figure 6 where female characters continue to occupy the space of a clothes shop. The two others are performed by male characters. In one, Alex and Ted are asking about sport trainers while, in the other, Ahmed is discussing the price of laptop computers. The assumption is that men are portrayed to be shopping things that go with their preferred activities which are sport and technology. Figure 6: Sue and her mother at the clothes shop [9: 32] In Visa [3], the two main dialogues are used for listening and reading practice. They are followed by comprehension questions and grammar exercises. The first is performed by Mary and Kate at a clothes shop [figure7]. In the second main dialogue, Pierre and Omar are at the bookshop instead of clothes shop [figure 8]. Pierre is just browsing, whereas Omar is looking for a map about historical places in London and an English cookbook, because he is doing research. Figure 7: Kate and Mary at the clothes shop [3: 51] American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 294 Figure 8: Pierre and Omar at the bookshop [3: 54] The unit about shopping is supplemented with minor dialogues for practice. On the same page, a dialogue is running between Betty and Mike at the bookshop. Mike is buying books to set up a reading club at the school library. As gap filling exercises, two short dialogues are provided to practice shopping-related linguistic items. The characters are Tom and Sue separately. The clerks in the shops are de-gendered since no picture is appended. In extension of the lesson based on shopping as a theme, the students are presented with a picture to describe [figure 9]. Three adult women, a man and a boy are shopping. The visibility of women in the shopping activity is higher than that of males. Figure 9: What are the people doing? [3: 54] The image of women as loving shopping prevails also in unit 10 based on the theme “Economy”. In the dialogue, Linda and Vicky are talking about clothes shops, the prices and clothes quality [3: 119]. In terms of statistics, it can be concluded that four over six dialogues analyzed above, basing on the theme of shopping in Visa [3], propagate the stereotype that women are possessed by the passion for shopping clothes. On the opposite, two dialogues show males shopping incited by intellectual motives and only one dialogue relates to a male shopping clothes. Back to Window [10] to find Mrs. Itry, Zaina and Mrs. Baker immersed in their realm of social and shopping American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 295 activities. Two consecutive units open up with big-scaled pictures about women shopping. Unit 6, entitled “Food and Holidays”, starts with picture talk [figure 10]. A woman is shopping at a supermarket. The learners are induced to talk about the ingredients needed for different dishes, prices of vegetables and likes and dislikes of types of food. On the page opposite, Zaina Itry decides to organize a party at home. Mrs. Baker proposes to help her making a shopping list [10: 73]. Figure 10: A woman shopping at a supermarket [10: 72] Two pages away, Peter and Hamid Itry are talking about past activities. Hamid was at the gym the day before. Peter wonders whether Beth was with him. Hamid answers that she was with her mother at the supermarket [figure 11]. Figure 11: Beth and her mother shopping [10: 75] The shopping unit is opened with an oral exercise asking the students to explore a picture [figure 12] by answering some questions. The two women are Mrs. Itry and Mrs. Baker in front of Mr. Itry’s shop. This activity is a prelude to the main first dialogue in unit seven. Mrs. Itry and Mrs. Baker are conversing about the most suitable carpet for Mrs. Baker to buy. Aicha offers her a catalogue. After all, Mrs. Baker claims that she needs Mr. Baker’s opinion. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 296 Figure 12: Aicha and Daria at Mr. Itry’s shop [10: 84] In relation to shopping, females are also described as having passion for organizing social activities such as parties. In Visa, in separate dialogues, Kate and Cynthia are inviting Betty and Janice to their parties [3: 62-65]. Figure 13: Susan and Maria in the kitchen [3: 42]. Caring for the household and initiating offspring to gender roles are also gendered duties in the textbooks, mainly low level ones. Jim, for example, asks his mother’s permission to watch T.V after dinner. She orders him to go to bed early [3: 70]. In the same textbook, Maria is initiating Susan to cooking Moroccan soup. They are in the kitchen [figure 13]. The image of young girls being apprentice to elder females in cooking and taking care for the house recurs in the textbooks. Carol is learning from her mother about ingredients needed to make some cream [figure 14]. Elsewhere in the same textbook, mother and daughter are in the kitchen, the former teaching the latter to be careful with knives [9: 72]. In another conversation, Mary and her mother are tidying the beds. Peter has let his trousers on the bed, reference to his carelessness about house tidiness as males would do. Mary takes the trousers and other garments to the laundry [9: 36]. In Gateway1 [6], the mother is in a hurry to finish some work at home “before your father comes” [6: 71], she says to her disturbing daughter. The daughter begs her mother to let her stay by her side and not disturb her while working. This means that the husband enjoy power at home even while he is absent. The male’s existence weighs heavily on the wife’s thoughts, her attitude and decisions. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 297 Talking about romantic past event that happened between mother and father is also the topic of the conversation between Nancy and her mother. They are going over an album of pictures and the mother is telling about the events behind the pictures and the first encounters [9: 83]. Figure 14: Carol and mother in the kitchen [9: 58] Likewise, males have got household roles. Two instances are very significant in this respect. In Ticket2 [5], one dialogue is about father and son discussing the boy’s future career while in the second they are conversing about world issues such as civil war in central Africa [5: 31-115]. Additional instances of interactive talk depict the father giving advice to the son about hazardous objects [9: 93]. In the same textbook, Kyle is learning from his father matters about using copyrighted software [figure 15]. Even girls can be educated by fathers. But, in this case, the father promises his daughter to buy her a technological gadget, a new mobile phone since she is doing well in learning [4: 145]. Figure 15: Kyle learning technology [9: 116] Though the fathers are not seen so much doing some housework, they are more powerful than their female household partners. Much of the work to be finalized needs the husband’s final opinion or the father’s decision. In Visa, Janice should talk to Albert before accepting Cynthia’s invitation to her party [3: 65]. Similarly, Mrs. Baker “need to see Mark’s opinion” [10: 86] on the type of the carpets she gets for the house. By contrast, in nowhere in any of the textbooks, a husband is shown to delay a decision before having checked with his wife. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 298 Another instance highlighting the powerful status of the father in the family is in Gateway1. Tom is waiting for his father at home. The latter has been late. The boy needs money and asks his caring mother to deliver the message to the father [10: 45]. One of the hardest moments experienced within the families described in the textbooks is reported in Ticket1. After having persuaded her mother to let her travel by herself, Samia is now soliciting the final decision from her father, Mr. Chbihi. When Mrs. Chbihi tries to argue for her daughter’s case, Mr. Chbihi interrupts her and neglects her by addressing a question to Samia. He says: Mrs. Chbihi: It is an opportunity for her to ….. Mr. Chbihi: But… where will you stay? [4: 140] However, males as husbands help wives and try to adopt their wives household roles. Mr Itry is preparing tea for the family[10: 10] and caring whether Zaina has done her homework even when he arrives home late [10: 125]. He also tries to cook sandwiches for the children, but he does not know what is lacking in the kitchen since it is within the realm of the wife. He proposes to go to buy what they need [10: 78]. In Gateway1, when the wife claims the need for milk, the husband offers to go out to bring it [6: 66]. In another exchange used for practice, the wife complains to the husband about the housework, and he reassures her that he will help her [6: 66]. In another case, Salim fried sardines and he burnt them [9: 91]. Finally, a picture afforded to practice the present progressive [ figure 16]. It describes a man named Mike who is cooking spaghetti for dinner. Figure 16: Man wearing apron and cooking [10: 38] It should be noted that all of the dialogues showing males in the kitchen or caring for the household are introduced as secondary dialogues to exercise on grammar or expressions. Therefore, the textbooks continue to stress that cooking and caring for the household got priority within women's sphere of activities. To conclude, the preceding discussion offers the opportunity for profound interpretations of gender representations in the textbook discourses. The interpretive exploration of women and males’ exchange of turns in talk aims to uncover the underlying ideological system which designs different spheres for different sexes. The analysis focuses on turn-taking and its role in conveying the gendered construction and consciousness of the sexes. The analysis also reveals the scope of power or privilege males and females enjoy in interaction as they follow strategies of allocation and appropriation of turns. Besides, the investigation American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 299 demonstrates how males are overrepresented in occupational roles, namely doctors and scientists; whereas women are stereotyped for their household roles and shopping passion. Women are, therefore, stereotyped as subordinate and weak while men enjoy visibility, supremacy and power in talk and different spheres of life. 6. Conclusion The present research has focused on gender imbalance in the current Moroccan ELT materials. The outcomes obtained by the study indicate that the authors of the textbooks have consciously invested efforts to represent both genders in different components of the textbooks such as themes, characters and language. However, multiple gender inequalities seem to persist in the textbooks. For this reason, a combination of quantifying data analysis and context-sensitive approach is employed to uncover the underlying gender ideology embedded in the textbook components rather than a single-way method of textbook analysis. Among the main textbook components analyzed are the dialogues as a corpus of linguistic data which hide features of gender bias within the communication strategies employed by males and females in context and the pedagogical illustrations accompanying these dialogues. As a result, the analysis has revealed the scope of power or privilege males and females enjoy in interaction as they follow strategies of allocation and appropriation of turns. Besides, the investigation has demonstrated the way males are overrepresented in occupational roles, namely doctors and scientists; whereas women are typecast for their household roles and shopping passion. Women are, therefore, stereotyped as subordinate and weak while men enjoy visibility, supremacy and power in talk and in different spheres of life. The outcomes from the study imply that textbook designers should treat gender representation quantitatively and qualitatively. A balance should be struck between the rates of gender roles within each theme in line with the rate of males and females in society. They should pay more attention to both the number of times, how, when, with whom and for how long a gender perform speech acts in dialogues. Special attention should also be focused on the ideology that the topic orientations of dialogues, the portrayal of men and women in occupational, social activities and places may produce. Authors, for example, should be considerate to recurrent illustrations of gender roles that impute females a very confined range of activities limited to shopping, cooking and caring. If such instances of gender inequities persist in textbooks, they may create a sense of normality towards discrimination in the learners’ concept of gender. This fact may affect negatively students’ learning styles and trigger prejudice in their subconscious socialization processes which will have repercussions on their adult life such as gender hostility. Such is the social phenomenon that this study intends to change in community. 6.1. Limitations and recommendations for future research The encounter with the following limitations provides opportune moments for further research. The observations drawn are concerned mainly with methodology of research. One of the limitations of this study relates to the space constraints in the interpretive part. Certainly, the qualitative discussion of gender discrimination in the textbook discourse should be allotted ampler space to American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 300 discuss deeply and broadly ampler exemplary cases of gender discrimination occurring in all of the eight textbooks studied. Therefore, a further qualitative study is needed to exploit the gendered dialogues which are abundant with revealing instances of sexism. The second future research suggestion concerns the targeted material. For wider generalizations, a similar study may involve equally textbooks from North African countries as a geographical and eventually political and economic entity. This will surely broaden the corpus of data. More important are the generalizations that will come out of the results and which will touch upon gender status in more than one country at once. The final observation considers an assumption incorporated in this investigation. The results of the study maintain that the gender stereotypes in the dialogues may adversely affect the young learners’ social potentiality and language learning opportunities in general. The study has not conducted any research such as questioning or interviewing either the students or the teachers to check the plausibility of such an assumption. Therefore, a challenging task for further research is investigating on the Moroccan classroom interaction that reflects the learners’ and teachers’ attitudes to dialogues embedding gender representations. Concurrently, a change in aims will call for a variation of methods and techniques such as departure from focus on textual analysis to embrace interviews, video and audio recordings of real classroom performance. References [1] T. A. Van Dijk. "Structures of discourse and structures of power," Annals of the International Communication Association, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 18–59, Jan. 1989. [2] M. Jaafari. "The Pedagogic Discourse and the Construction of Identity: Gender Representation in the EFL Textbook discourse," PhD thesis, Sultan Moulay Slimane University, 2015. [3] A. Bouddouch, M. Ahellal, and S. Messaoudi. Visa to the World: Student’s Book, Tronc Commun. Casablanca: Dar Anachr Al Maarif, 2005. [4] M. Hammani, S. Ahssen, and L. Tansaoui. Ticket to English: Student’s Book, 1st Year Baccalaureate. Casablanca: D.I.O El Hadita, 2006. [5] M. Hammani, S. Ahssen, and L. Tansaoui. Ticket to English: Student’s Book, 2nd Year Baccalaureate. Casablanca: D.I.O El Hadita, 2007. [6] M. Hassim, M. Blibil, and A. Rasmy. Gateway to English, Student’s Book, 1ere Année du Cycle du Baccalauréat. Rabat:Nadia Edition, 2006. [7] M. Hassim, M. Blibil, and A. Rasmy. Gateway to English, Student’s Book, 2eme Année du Cycle du Baccalauréat.Rabat:Nadia Edition, 2006. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2016) Volume 26, No 1, pp 286-301 301 [8] M. Najbi, M. Elhaddad, and A. Rasmy. Insights into English, Student’s Book, 2eme Année du Cycle du Baccalauréat. Rabat:Nadia Edition, 2007. [9] A. Oulbouch and M. Yacine. Outlook: Student’s Book, Tronc Commun. Rabat: Inter Graph, 2005. [10] R. Mejbar, A. Kessab, B. Bagui and M. Ouajjani. Al Massar, Window on the World, Student’s Book, Tronc Commun. Rabat:Nadia Edition, 2005. [11] T. Deborah. (1995). "The power of talk: Who gets heard and why," Harvard Business Review, vol. 73, no. 5, pp. 138–48. [Online]. Available: http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ509507. [ Sep. 29, 2016]. [12] H. Sacks, E. A. Schegloff, and G. Jefferson, "A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation," Language, vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 696–735, 1974. [13] L. Kramer, The Sociology of Gender: A Brief Introduction, 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Pub Co, 2001. [14] S. Whitcomb, "Content analysis of sixth grade textbooks for evidence of gender bias," unpublished MA Thesis, Central Missouri State University, 1999.