Gender representation in Zimbabwe ordinary level 2010-2015 prescribed Chishona literature texts

Abstract

Textbooks play a crucial role in the moulding of pupils’ gender identities. The purpose of this study is to explore gender representation in the Zimbabwean Ordinary Level 2010-2015 ChiShona prescribed literature texts in order to determine the gender representation that the prescribed texts expose to pupils. The study also sought to determine the potential educational implications of the gender representation in light of the Afrocentric paradigm of Africana womanist theory. The study is primarily qualitative. It involves purposively sampled four Old World and three New World novels and a play. The study subjects the purposively sampled ChiShona literature texts to documentary analysis, inductive content analysis and discourse analysis. The study employed grounded theory coding scheme and thematic weblike data analysis. The results show that there is a plural gender representation in the selected prescribed ChiShona texts. The study has, therefore, generated a three-dimensional grounded theory of gender representation. First, there is a humanistic gender representation dimension that portrays gender in a relational and complementary picture. Second, there is the authoritarian gender representation dimension that portrays gender as differential, binary, oppositional and hierarchical in nature. Third, there is gender expansive representation that portrays gender as an individual choice. The tripartite gender representation has the potential of socialising pupils into gender complementarities (humanitarian), gender symmetrical (authoritarian) and gender asymmetrical (gender expansivity). These three gender representations correspond to three potential forms of gender socialisation among pupils in school. The humanitarian dimension of gender representation has the potential of socialising learners into a belief that gender is something hardwired into the biological make up of males and females. This may not measure up to the expectations of achieving gender equality in a learning environment. The authoritarian gender representation dimension may socialise learners into a belief in rigid, symmetrical gender duality in which the male is privileged over the female. The third dimension of gender expansive representation portrays gender-roles as open to any “body”. This has the potential of socialising pupils into a belief in the subversion of gender duality and buys into the theory of gender as performativity. This implies conceiving gender, as something of the future, that is, it will be what it will be. This implies that people will know gender roles when males/females perform them in specific contexts.