“Gender equality” goal. Guidelines for implementing the principle of gender equality in primary school textbooks.

Abstract

The topic of equal gender representation in school textbooks is interpreted as a central issue in which to invest for the promotion of a culture of equal opportunities in the educational field. In Italy the idea of equality in textbooks was acknowledged late, only at the end of the 1990s, as part of the European project Polite (acronym for Equal Opportunities in Textbooks), a code of self-regulation drawn up for school publishers in the aim of producing future textbooks free of sexist stereotypes.

The goal of this contribution is firstly to make an analysis the outcomes of the Polite project a quarter of a century after its creation, and secondly, to present the Guidelines developed by the author for implementing the principle of gender equality in primary school textbooks.