Gender representation in Kurikulum Merdeka english textbook for Secondary Level

Studies on gender representation in textbooks have been conducted over the years. However, despite the numerous studies on gender representation in English textbooks in Indonesia, only a few studies have analyzed gender representation in Kurikulum Merdeka English textbooks. This study aims to analyze how gender is represented in the Kurikulum Merdeka English textbook “English for Change” for Grade XI, which is published by the Indonesian Ministry of Education. This research is a qualitative study using critical discourse analysis from Fairclough in 1989 which consists of description, interpretation, and explanation. The aspects studied in this study are gender visibility and occupation in text and pictures. These aspects are based on the adaptation of Porreca's 1984 framework and Wu and Liu's 2015 framework. The findings show that the “English for Change” textbook for Grade XI mostly tends to represent females more than males, regardless of whether there are aspects that show significant differences or not. These findings are different from most previous studies in the previous curriculum, which tended to represent males more than females. This indicates a shift in focus in textbook representation, reflecting a more progressive effort to provide space for females to promote better equality. Females are also portrayed as individuals with diverse occupations and social roles, although their presence is less distributed throughout the unit, and they no longer tend to be only attached to domestic roles. This finding is associated with trends when the textbook was published, in which several social issues showed an effort to recognize females. In addition, Kurikulum Merdeka emphasizes the spirit of inclusive learning, which includes accepting and appreciating student differences, including gender. The findings also highlight the challenges of representing gender in textbooks in a completely consistent and evenly distributed manner. This study suggests that textbook publishers should be concerned about the gender distribution of both males and females in each unit. Textbook readers are also advised to be critical of how gender is represented in the textbook. In addition, other frameworks and other Kurikulum Merdeka textbooks can be further analyzed for future research.