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This study aims to investigate the representation of gender and intercultural competence in the images and texts of 15 Iranian secondary school English coursebooks, published over six decades. Gender representation was investigated using the framework proposed by Dahmardeh and Kim (2020), and the scale developed by Solhaug and Kristensen (2020) was used as the criteria for investigating intercultural competence. The data were coded and counted using manifest content analysis. The results showed that Iranian English coursebooks mentioned males and females unequally in their texts across different decades, with one gender being represented more in each decade. Regarding gender representation in the images, males were represented more than females in almost all decades. The representation of males and females in the books published in the 1970s was almost equal, followed by extreme and sudden changes in gender representation in the 1980s. However, the books published in and after the 2000s presented a balanced picture of males and females. The coursebooks dealt with intercultural competence in their texts and images very rarely, limiting this concept to religious issues and neglecting other aspects. In fact, the coursebooks addressed only one category out of the 11 categories. Finally, the study ends with implications for coursebook authors, materials designers, teachers, students, and teacher trainers.

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In this essay, the novel Raz'haye Sarzamine Man (The Mysteries of My Land) has been analyzed due to the issues of gender representation, using the critical discourse analysis methods and Simone de Beauvoir's notion of gender. This, has led to the conclusion that portraying female characters in this novel, has two significant aspects: first, the Transformation of binary opposition of Innocent Girl/Prostitute (Athiry /Lakkateh) that has been illustrated by Hedayat, into Revolutionary Mother/ Royal Prostitute in this novel; and second, the emphasize placed on the political role of women in the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the importance of this role, and the portrayal of these women as powerful, visionary and open mind characters. Here, the hidden ideology of the text, has changed the problem of women and presumptions and judgments about them into a political and class-related one and so, has effected the writer's concept of the history. It has been shown here also that the metaphor of the homeland as mother has shaded the text in the form of a mythical thought.

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Hegemonies imposed from sources of power have been an issue of investigation for many years. In recent years, media and movies have gained particular attention due to their society-affecting power. The present study explores how male and female characters are represented in American movies based on the Van Leeuwen’s (2008) social actor categorization. Hence, the researchers focus on the scripts of the movies available in fiction genre of COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English). A representative sample of words depicting each gender was chosen based on their frequencies, and accordingly, their collocations were extracted. The findings indicate that men and women representations were following stereotypical depiction of gender roles; while men tended to be associated with high-ranked jobs, positions, activities, and identification categories, women were shown to be passively linked with inferior features, low-income jobs, child-bearers, and sexual aspects. More specifically, women were mostly objectified through a patriarchal perspective. The results might shed light on the archetypical imposition of power from above and may pave the way for unbiased media where depths, not just the appearances, of characters are of greater significance.