The need for female referents has been one of the main demands of coeducation in recent years, an educational trend that aims to promote the development of boys and girls free of gender stereotypes. This implies, for example, a constant review of the language used in class, of how students are treated regardless of their gender, of the reactions to their grades or behaviors in class.
And an essential step to achieve this is to promote equality from the textbooks that are used in the classrooms at any level and subject; a subject that until not long ago was still pending. This was confirmed by Ana López-Navajas (
Write Any Papers), who in the study ' Analysis of the absence of women in ESO manuals: a hidden genealogy of knowledge', concluded that only 7.5% of women References that appeared in the 115 books analyzed for 19 subjects made mention of women. Among them, the least included were those from subjects such as
Physics and Chemistry or Social Sciences.
Publishers are aware of this gap and, for some school years, have been working to give women an equal role to that of men and ensuring that they are integrated into the educational curriculum from a feminist perspective. This means incorporating female references, but also ensuring an inclusive use of language and co-responsibility, avoiding stereotypes, and showing examples of equal participation of people without coinciding with predefined gender roles. “We are in contact with people and institutions that work on this issue and we incorporate them as authors or reviewers of our work and, in addition, we constantly look for current information to find and make visible the work of women who can be a reference, Edelvives Group.
In the SM Groupon the other hand, specific internal use material has been created to guide editors in educational work on equality and equity. Likewise, it has an internal consultation channel to resolve doubts about the approach and treatment of certain topics according to levels within the framework of its editorial line; At the same time, they carry out the training given by specialists (internal and external) to all the teams that make up an educational project to encourage reflection, share doubts and create spaces for collaboration, open consultation channels and generate global policies for the treatment of equality. "We pay special attention to the use of image, inclusive language, classroom dynamics that promote teaching inequality, visibility of women in history, science, literature ...", explains Carles Suero,
Another example is that of Santillana, who has defined a stylebook for gender equality, in which they have determined the criteria for the use of inclusive language and for the selection and treatment of content and images, which all professionals in the publisher should follow in their publications. "In addition, we develop pedagogical projects devoted entirely to reflection on gender equality and its promotion," completes Teresa Greece, its Editorial director.
