Action Competence for Gender Equality as Sustainable Development: Analyzing Swedish Lower Secondary Level Textbooks in Biology, Civics, and Home and Consumer Studies

Gender equality constitutes a central aspect of sustainable development. Education is commonly viewed as crucial for achieving both sustainable development and gender equality, and many argue that fostering action competence is a key element in such educational efforts. This article directs attention to the ways in which textbook content about sustainable development and gender equality may support and/or hinder the promotion of action competence. We analyze content about gender equality and sustainable development in Swedish lower secondary school textbooks in biology, civics, and home and consumer economics. We find that sustainable development and gender equality are organized as separate, rather than integrated, topics in textbooks. The analysis also shows that the social dimension, in particular, and multidimensionality, in general, of sustainable development are poorly described. Content about gender equality is furthermore marked by anthropocentric perspectives and weak historical contextualization. All of these traits, we argue, hinder rather than support how textbooks may promote action competence.