Representations of woman in history textbooks: between advances, permanences

Abstract

Taking as a basis for analysis a set of four school textbooks of different authors, editors and contexts, this article investigates the way in which the female figure is represented in such materials. For this purpose, textbooks published between the 1990s and 2020s are analyzed diachronically, in order to investigate the similarities, disparities and continuities in the scope of the historical-social and educational representation of the woman, highlighting, in each book, the potentialities and limitations of the theme for teaching history. The results indicate that, although there have been advances in the most recent textbooks, especially with regard to the broadening of the analytical perspective and the inclusion of women as participants in history, the discursive tone, however, still presents continuities that date back to traditional historiography, with a positivist tendency, privileging the narratives of white male subjects and those with a favorable economic position to the detriment of other historical characters, specifically here women, relegating them, at most, to the role of mere secondary players in the historical process.