posted on 2008-01-01, 00:00authored byS Azisah, Colleen Vale
Gender mainstreaming is a strategy employed to achieve gender equality and equity by considering the experiences, aspirations, needs and problems of women and men in the process of planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating all policies and programs of various sectors of social development (Ministry of Women's Empowerment Republic of Indonesia 2000). The government has undertaken activities including working with publishers in 2004 to address gender bias in textbooks. Various studies informed the analytic framework for this study of gender role depictions in Islamic primary school textbooks in South Sulawesi. Islamic primary schools in South Sulawesi were chosen for two reasons. The first reason was personal interest. The second reason was that a textbook analysis has not been completed since the implementation of the textbook writing program and it would be appropriate to conduct such a study in a province where gender mainstreaming is likely to challenge local ethnic culture and orthodox Islamic teaching. South Sulawesi provides such a context.