Abstract

CABECINHAS, Rosa  and  LAISSE, Sara. "Who Wants to Be Erased?" Images of Women in History Textbooks in Mozambican Education. Vista [online]. 2021, n.8, e021010.  Epub May 01, 2023. ISSN 2184-1284.  https://doi.org/10.21814/vista.3517.

In this article, we discuss how women are portrayed in the current history textbooks of the general secondary education in Mozambique: what is the place of women in the history of Mozambique? Which women have a name, a face or a voice in the textbooks? How is women historical agency described? To answer these questions, we conducted a synchronic, multimodal and comparative analysis of how the history textbooks of 11th and 12th grades portray women. The analysis reveals profound asymmetries in the gender representations, both regarding the teaching content and the sources and iconography. The textbooks provide a historiographical framework based on male leadership while women appear confined to traditional gender roles, with rare exceptions. In light of the scarcity of studies concerning gender representations, intersectionality and history education in Mozambique, we analyse how text and image contribute to the erasure of women's agency in history textbooks. We pay particular attention to the pictures of women and discuss images' potential for combating sexism and decolonising knowledge.

Keywords : Mozambique; history education; cultural memory; decoloniality; (in)visibilities.

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