An analysis of gender representation in territory-wide system assessment English language papers for primary school students in Hong Kong

An analysis of gender representation in territory-wide system assessment English language papers for primary school students in Hong Kong

• Yang, Chi Cheung Ruby The University of Hong Kong
• Yan, Tsoi Lam The Education University of Hong Kong

Sexuality & Culture, 24(4), 1128-1149, 2020

Springer New York LLC

2020

• P Social Context of Education
  • PI Education of Girls & Women, Gender Roles; Gender; Femininities; Masculinities; Sexualities
• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GB English Language

English Language Gender Representation Language Testing Territory-Wide System Assessment (TSA)

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Primary Education

Gender stereotyping has long been an issue for gender and language research from as early as the 1970s, and analyses on gender representation in English language textbooks have been frequently conducted. However, gender representation in assessment papers, another commonly occurring genre in education, remains unexplored in Hong Kong research. Therefore, this paper was aimed to explore how males and females are represented in Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA), a territory-level assessment administered in Hong Kong, to find out if gender stereotyping is still an issue. The data of the current study include the recent 10 years of TSA Primary 3 English Language Reading & Writing papers. A total of 33 sets of TSA Primary 3 English Language Reading & Writing papers was analysed by using content and linguistic analyses for their written texts and visual analysis for visual elements. The key findings include: males and females are represented similarly in the written texts and in the visuals, and females are portrayed as involving in occupational roles more frequently than males in both the written texts and visuals. However, it is always females who were drawn to be focused on family matters, and the marital status of a female is still distinguished by the use of either Miss or Mrs. Suggestions for test paper designers and examination authorities are given and implications for future research studies are drawn at the end of this paper. Copyright ©Springer New York LLC.

• English

Journal Articles

• 10955143

• 10.1007/s12119-020-09754-0

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/4bd6878f

2021-04-13