We tend not to think of school textbooks as places where unconventional ideas can find expression. After all, textbooks are meant to contain sterile content, facts and concepts that have been examined and accepted, to be presented to children as a fair representation of the world they will grow up into. But lessons in textbooks can also be windows into the possible. They play a role in building a worldview, and fostering in the child an understanding of social and cultural norms. This is particularly true in primary school, where illustrations play an important role in explaining things to young children. This is why good publishers take special care with illustrations, ensuring that they convey information in positively stimulating ways.

So when the Kerala Government took a deliberate decision to populate textbooks of some classes with images and content that would challenge stereotypical gender roles, it was seen as an innovative move. The SCERT is reported to have said that these revisions have been made to reflect changes in society, and to foster empathy towards marginalized and under-represented groups, including but beyond gender.

In one widely shared image from a class 3 English textbook, a family is shown in their kitchen, with the mother standing at the stove while the father sits on the floor grating coconut while the two children look on. In another, the father is preparing a snack while a child looks on. A few other states, including Maharashtra, have also been doing this, pointing to a conscious effort on the part of educational governing bodies to do their bit to change gender norms.

The more cynical might argue that a few pictures in children’s textbooks cannot change the world, but the hopeful among us would say that such pictures can shift our expectations of life, simply by exposing us to what is possible. Visual representation in media of all kinds can make a difference to how we see ourselves and our place in the world. When girls see other girls taking on unconventional roles, they understand that they too can do these things. Similarly, a father in a textbook image can spark a conversation about a father in the home.

Of course, gender norms and other social and cultural rules are deep rooted; it will take many initiatives to dismantle them. But it’s also worth remembering that children spend many hours looking at their school books; for many, these are the only books they will have access to. The pictures in these books can normalize practices in both good and bad ways, and if the images show the kind of world we want to have, it’s possible that children will grow up expecting—and contributing to—such a vision.   

Usha Raman