ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the following French school subjects – arts and crafts, manual work, home economics, applied sciences and technology education – and considers how school knowledge is gendered through a historical analysis of French middle-school textbooks from the 1940s to the 1990s. Using a methodology of comparative historical analysis of school textbooks in applied sciences and in technology education, the chapter focuses on two periods: the first period (1940–1975) when textbooks were produced, respectively, for single-sex girls’ schools and boys’ schools; and the second period (after the mid-1970s) when textbooks were published for mixed-sex schools. The data analysis (iconographic and textual) highlights the following themes: first, that the explicit subject contents make reference to gendered social practices; and second, that the implicit or tacit gendered contents are represented in the textbooks’ pictures and illustrations. The chapter demonstrates that the textbooks of the first period represent traditional and stereotypical gender-specific lifestyles, technical operations, gestures, artefacts, skills and knowledge, while the textbooks of the second period include more undifferentiated contents and pictures. Some implications for teachers’ practices are discussed.
