1. PICTURING A SCIENTIST IN MIDDLE SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS
a visual rhetoric approach to the
problem of gender disparities in
STEM
h.m.wells, texas lutheran university
rhetoric society of america conference 2012

2. PURPOSES OF THE STUDY
 to add to the expanding
theories of visual rhetoric by
applying the visual analysis
method of Kress and Van
Leeuwen (1996) to images
from 7th grade life science
books
 to apply rhetorical analysis
(enthymemes and repetition)
to these same images to look
for visual arguments

3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
 How are gender roles presented in the
photographs in science textbooks?
 How do science textbooks present the
occupational roles and activities of the
genders in these texts?
 In what ways can Kress and Van Leeuwen’s
(1996) theory of visual grammar help in
understanding how images in science
textbooks argue?
 In what ways can analysis of repetition help us
understand the visual arguments that textbook
images make over an entire text?

4. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
 H1: While girls and boys are photographically
represented fairly equally in number in science
texts published within the past decade, girls are
still being represented in less-powerful and/or
less-important roles than boys.
 H2: Visual analysis using Kress and Van
Leeuwen’s theory will yield thick description and
rich data about each analyzed image, enabling
me to show how each textbook represents gender
visually.

5. ASSUMPTIONS FROM THE LITERATURE
 Gender is not necessarily a simple binary
(male/female), but may best be treated as such for
this project.
 Children identify with pictures they see in
textbooks.
 There is such a thing as rhetoric of science.
 There is such a thing as visual rhetoric.
 Photographs are assumed to be representations of
reality.
 Pictures can argue; they do so enthymematically.
 Women pursue STEM careers less often than
men, and this is a problem for our society.

6. METHODOLOGY
The naturalistic enthymeme
(Finnegan, 2001):
 viewers see the photograph as an actual
representation of nature, and as capable
of arguing enthymematically.
 “The Rhetoric’s official definition of
enthymeme is its definition of
sullogismos” (Burnyeat, 1996, p. 96). “An
enthymeme is an argument (sullogismus
tis) in a rhetorical speech” (p. 98).

7. METHODOLOGY
Kress & Van Leeuwen (1996) tests of image modality:
 color saturation
 color differentiation
 color modulation
 contextualization
 representation
 depth
 illumination
 brightness
 coding orientation
 horizontal & vertical angles

8. METHODOLOGY
People Category (see Kress & Van
Leeuwen, 1996; Whiteley, 1996; and Elgar, 2004)
 Gender
 Uniform/Clothing
 Vectors/Interactions
 Age – Adult or youth
This information was used to look for
enthymemes in the images.

9. DATA COLLECTION
 Three 7th grade life science
textbooks
 PrenticeHall 2005
 Glencoe 2005
 McDougal Littell 2005

10. RESULTS – ALL TEXTS
250
200
150
100
GLENCOE 2005
MCDOUGAL LITTELL 2005
50
PRENTICE HALL 2005
0

11. RESULTS – ALL TEXTS
0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% 90.00%100.00%
Saturation
Modulation
Differentiation
Contextualization
Detail McDougal Littell Text Naturalistic Range
Glencoe Text Naturalistic Range
Depth
Prentice Hall Text Naturalistic Range
Illumination
Brightness
Coding Orientation
Horizontal Angles
Vertical Angles

12. VISUAL ENTHYMEMES—SINGLE IMAGE
Observation: A white boy, standing, pulls an item
from a paper bag. A white girl, seated, looks at the
item, smiling, and writes something down on a
notepad. Both wear plain, unmodulated-color shirts.
 Generalization: Boys perform
experiments, while girls assist by taking notes.
 Inference 1: If you are a girl, then you will
probably take notes for a boy.
 Inference 2: If you are a boy, then you will
perform experimental tasks (perhaps while
standing up).
 Inference 3: If you are a girl, you will be very
happy about performing secretarial tasks for
boys.
 Inference 4: If you are a girl, you probably
need to sit down while performing secretarial
tasks.

13. VISUAL ENTHYMEMES—REPETITION
Observation: White male works outdoors as forestry
technician. He wears a hard hat and orange safety
vest. He works alone.
 Generalization: Men are interested in work as
forestry experts.
 Inference 1: If you are male, you may enjoy this
type of work.
 Inference 2: Forestry work is dangerous (hard hat
and safety vest) and takes place outdoors.
 Inference 3: If you are female, you may not be
interested in this type of work (perhaps because it
is dangerous and takes place outdoors).
 Inference 4: If you are a male forestry
technician, you can work alone; you do not need
assistance to do your job.

14. VISUAL ENTHYMEMES—REPETITION
Observation: A female doctor is pointing something out to a
female nurse. The doctor is dressed in a lab coat and wears
a stethoscope and badge. The nurse seems to be dressed
more casually. The doctor is white, whereas the nurse is
African American. The doctor stands in front of the nurse
and has the nurse look over her shoulder.
 Generalization: Women can work as doctors or
nurses.
 Inference 1: If you are female, you may enjoy working
in the health professions, either as a doctor or nurse.
 Inference 2: If you are male, you may not enjoy
working in the health professions (though we know
from experience that the majority of doctors are
male, so this inference is somewhat unlikely).
 Inference 3: If you are African American and
female, you probably will be a nurse and not a doctor.
 Inference 4: Doctors are more important than nurses:
they have to wear badges, lab coats, and pocket
protectors, and they give instructions to nurses.

15. VISUAL ENTHYMEMES—REPETITION
Observation: A picture of a white male outdoor worker
is situated above and to the left of a picture of two
female health care workers. The way their bodies are
placed, the male is facing down and to the left (toward
the spine of the book), and the women are facing down
and just slightly to the right (toward the page margin)—
this creates a visual separation between them, so that
even though they are in the same area of the
page, they appear utterly separate.
 Generalization: Elements pictured on the left are
presented as Given, whereas elements on the
right are presented as New (Kress & Van
Leeuwen, 1996, p. 187).
 Inference 1: It is a given that men do outdoor
jobs such as forestry.
 Inference 2: It is new that women do jobs in
health care (especially as doctors).
 Inference 3: Men work alone; women have to
work in pairs or groups.
 Inference 4: Compared to men, women do indoor
jobs that are less dangerous and physically
strenuous.

16. VISUAL ENTHYMEMES –VS. VERBAL ENTHYMEMES
Observation (Photo): A photo of Marie Curie.
She is a white female.
Generalization: This is what Marie Curie
looks like.
Inference: Females in the late 19th century
could look like this, and they could be
scientists.
Observation (Caption): The text describes
how Curie's work depended upon the work of
Henri Becquerel, and that she eventually won
the Nobel for discovering radioactivity.
Generalization: Marie Curie’s work couldn’t
have been done without the foundational
work of Becquerel.
Inference: A woman, even a
scientist, cannot reach the heights of her
field without the help of a man.

17. VISUAL ENTHYMEMES –VS. VERBAL ENTHYMEMES
Observation (Photo): This is a photo of Charles
Darwin. He is dressed in the fashion of the first half of
the 19th century. He is balding and looks serious.
Generalization: This is what the young Darwin
looked like.
Inference: Darwin was a white man with a slight
comb-over when he began his early research.
Observation (Caption): The text states that Darwin
was just 20 when he took his trip to the Galapagos
Islands.
Generalization: Darwin was quite young—younger
than the average scientist, perhaps.
Inference: If you are a young, white male, you too
could change the course of scientific discovery.
Inference: If you are anyone other than a
young, white male, you may not identify with this

18. DISCUSSION
 The images were naturalistic in the
majority of categories in all three
books. Of the three, the McDougal
Littell’s images were the most
naturalistic.
 Visuals in these textbooks argue
enthymematically through accepted
cultural knowledge and stereotypes.

19. MALES FEMALES
 Pictured more often in active roles  Pictured in traditionally female roles
 workplace, family life, and  parenting, teaching, helping, and supporting
experimental situations (e.g., lab
assistant, secretary, nurse, elementary
 When pictured with females, males were school teacher)
much more likely to be performing an
 When depicted in roles requiring advanced
activity
education, shown working with other
 filling a beaker or measuring an object women, or with children, rather than as
 Pictured doing traditionally male jobs equals or supervisors to men
 working outdoors, lifting heavy  When in nontraditional roles, these
objects, getting dirty, doing science appearances were given great fanfare (set
 Pictured in jobs that required advanced apart in sidebars, plastered across two
education pages, or otherwise drawn attention to)
 “Remember, women never used to do these sorts
 When shown in family situations, much of things” or—perhaps worse—“Look what a good
more likely to be the recipients of service job our editors did of making sure women in
than the providers of it science were represented in our textbook”
 Pictured as smiling, even when passively
watching males doing all the activities
MALE VS. FEMALE ROLES

20. 7TH GRADE LIFE SCIENCE: PERPETUATING STEREOTYPES
In all, these three textbooks seem to make an effort to offer
women equal representation, but they ultimately fail by
perpetuating several stereotypes:
 Males are the norm, females are other
 Males do science, females take notes
 Males do dirty jobs, females do clean jobs
 Males are active, females are passive
 Males are doers, females are caregivers
 Science is objective
 Females are scarce in STEM

21. WHAT NEXT?
 Updates with newer texts
 Comparisons of older to newer editions of
same text
 Representation of women of color and
women with visible disabilities
We need to do a better job representing
women in STEM careers as NORMAL!

22. THANK YOU!
 Sara Newman, PhD, Dissertation Director
 Derek Van Ittersum, PhD (Kent, LRSP)
 Ray Craig, PhD (Kent, LRSP)
 Robert Heath, PhD (Kent, Biology)
 Igniting Streams of Learning in Science
(www.islsohio.org)
 Jaryl & Julian Altomare
 Sigrid Streit for all the feedback
 All of YOU!