Analysing Gender Bias in School Textbooks in India

Note: This article was originally published by Ideas for India.

India is among the worst countries in the world on the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index, ranking 129^th in 2024. Our previous research has shown that South Asia, and India in particular, is the worst region in the English-speaking world for stereotypes and low representation of women and girls in schoolbooks. Figure 1 shows the association in textbooks between gendered words and words related to achievement, appearance, home, and work (examples include text linking mothers to cooking, and assuming doctors are male). Books from South Asia have the strongest male bias in relation to language around achievement and work, and the strongest female bias in relation to language around appearance, relative to books from the UK, US, Australia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Figure 1. Gender stereotypes in English-language schoolbooks 

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Sexism in Indian textbooks has been a recurring political issue for decades. An analysis of Hindi and English textbooks in 1979 revealed the widespread promotion of sexist attitudes, which the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training)—the government agency responsible for producing national textbooks—denounced as sensationalist. Another study of NCERT textbooks in 2017 documented similarly sexist content, prompting the Indian Minister for Education to call for “appropriate action”. Our analysis of NCERT books published between 2020 and 2022 suggests that progress towards this goal has been limited. We find that just 34 percent of gendered words (such as ‘he’ or ‘she’) in NCERT books are female, and 66 percent are male.

Does gender bias in books vary across state boards?

Public education in India is largely decentralised to the states, but many states choose for their state board books to mirror the national NCERT curriculum. In 2021, 23 of 28 state boards were using NCERT textbooks in some or all grades. Other states choose for affiliated schools to follow their own state board books. State board books tend to be based on the NCERT curriculum, supplemented with relevant state-specific content. Most competitive national level entrance exams for higher education rely on the NCERT curriculum (especially for the sciences) so states tend to try and align with that curriculum to a high degree.

We identified publicly available English-language textbooks from 10 state boards that we can compare with the NCERT books—from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana (see Table 1 below for more details). On average, these state board books have even fewer mentions of women and girls than national NCERT books. One state stands out as having particularly high female representation, namely, Gujarat. States in the South tend to do worse than states in the Hindi belt, despite higher female literacy and workforce participation (Figure 2).

Table 1. Textbook data by grade

Figure 2. Gender representation in schoolbooks in Indian states

When we compare gender representation in books with independent measures of gender norms, we find surprisingly little correlation. We use a 2022 Pew Survey that asks seven questions about gender norms to create an index of progressive attitudes. Mizoram has one of the highest scores on progressive gender attitudes, but only 22 percent female representation in schoolbooks. By contrast, Gujarat, with the clear highest female representation in books, has the lowest score on progressive attitudes (Figure 3). Although a crude measure of the level of sexism in textbooks, these data might at least suggest that prevailing gender attitudes are not necessarily an obstacle to increasing and improving female representation in learning materials.

Figure 3. Gender representation in schoolbooks in Indian states

Efforts to improve female representation

Representation of girls and women in textbooks is a natural complement to ongoing successful efforts to increase gender parity in schools. Gender representation in textbooks is a powerful tool in shaping more egalitarian gender attitudes in society and contributing to a broader cultural shift. Textbooks can provide diverse role models and alternatives to stereotypes by normalizing progressive gender roles. They can also work to build a foundation for gender equality among students that translates to significant social, economic and cultural benefits. Revising curricula to not only mention women more, but also work towards challenging regressive stereotypes could result in higher economic growth, by encouraging workforce equality, higher female representation in non-traditional roles, and increased female leadership.  

Maharashtra, India’s second most populous state and home to the financial capital Mumbai, is currently revising its school curriculum. Critics have pointed to the lack of representation of different socioeconomic groups in the textbooks that are used presently, but our analysis shows that gender representation is also a clear issue, with Maharashtra State Board books having the third lowest female representation of all states in India. Elsewhere, Kerala is making explicit efforts to remove gender stereotypes from their books, partly in response to a spate of deaths from domestic abuse in the state; demonstrating the government’s belief in the role of textbooks in shaping attitudes. Karnataka has also just updated their books, with the panel claiming to have kept gender sensitivity in mind. As the worst performing state on our measure, we hope this is true.