The portrayal of sexuality and gender in biology textbooks and how it reflects the school’s fundamental values.

The purpose with this thesis is to see how gender and sexuality are portrayed in middle school biology textbooks. This empirical work attempts to answer three questions:

• How is sexuality portrayed in middle school biology textbooks?

• How is gender portrayed in middle school biology textbooks?

• How does the portrayal reflect the fundamental values of the school?

To answer these questions, a qualitative text analysis, based on close reading of the texts was applied to four different Swedish middle school textbooks in biology. Based on the type of texts, specific questions will be asked during this text analysis. The theoretical framework used in this work is queer and gender theory. Queer theory is the theoretical framework used to analyze gender and sexuality and includes concepts like heteronormativity and performativity. Gender theory is used to analyze context based on an interest in gender. Based on this analysis, three out of four books presented a heteronormative theme. These three books assume that most people are heterosexual, that everyone identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth and are stereotypical in their sex roles. Sometimes the books include other sexualities besides heterosexuality. But only one of the four books analyzed uses a neutral approach by not excluding different sexualities and problematizing gender roles. Two of the books deviate considerably from the school’s fundamental values by discriminating against other sexualities besides heterosexuality. In general, it was found that the books reflect the fundamental values of the school to at least some extent, although it can always be improved.