The purpose of the study is to investigate how the portrayal of women and their role has changed in textbooks between the years 1988-2016. The study´s point of departure has been three textbooks for the social studies subject for upper secondary school. Three studies have been conducted for the study, 1988, 1996 and 2016. Each year is represented by a textbook. The study aims to contribute knowledge about how women have been portrayed over time and what role women are attributed through the study of textbook images. The questions that answered the letter of intent were: What is the proportion of pictures of women in the textbooks between the years 1988-2016? In what way are the women described in the textbooks between the years 1988-2016? How does the portrayal of women change in the textbooks from 1988-2016?

The study of textbooks has been a natural feature. This is because the textbooks are most often an element in teaching that teachers, especially new graduates, use to get a teaching that meets the control documents' requirements for teaching (Ammert, 2011, p. 17; Sparrlöf, 2012, p. 6). Textbooks for upper secondary school were also given because the textbooks convey certain information that becomes a truth for the students (Tingsten, 1969, p. 13, 281). The survey is both quantitative and qualitative. The textbooks have been compiled quantitatively through a table where the reader can see how many pictures there are of men and women respectively. The survey is also qualitative because semiotics has been used as a method to analyze the textbooks' images. The theory for the study has been a gender perspective where the textbooks have been studied based on this.

The textbooks have shown that the quantitative presence of images of men is dominant throughout all three textbooks. The study of the textbooks shows a change in how women are portrayed. The change means that the women have been portrayed in roles as caring and supportive as the women have had professions such as nurses, midwives and primary school teachers. To the fact that the women in the later book from 2016 have more leading roles as the pictures show that women have a greater chance of influencing the development of society by being activists and politicians et cetera. Keywords: gender, gender equality, textbooks and social studies teaching