Skin Color Representation In Government-endorsed and Commercial English Textbooks in Indonesia

Abstract

Skin color representation is an important aspect in ensuring diversity in a textbook, yet the research about the topic is still limited. This study aims to identify and analyze skin color representation in the English textbooks published in Indonesia. As a comparison, two textbooks are used in this study. The first textbook is Bahasa Inggris Work in Progress SMA/SMK/MA Kelas X which is published by the Indonesian government and the second textbook is Buku Interaktif Active English : English for Senior High School Students Grade X which is published by Intan Pariwara. Qualitative research method is used in this study by utilizing content analysis. The Fitzpatrick scale is utilized to determine the skin color of the people on the images found in the textbooks. The researcher used the Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2020) framework to get the information about the interactive dimension between images and viewer. The findings showed that based on the Fitzpatrick scale the most represented skin color on the government book are type III and type IV while on the commercial book type II and type III are the most represented skin color. Based on the framework from Kress and van Leeuwen, the types are embedded in demand, personal and equality categories. Both the government and the private publisher have tried to include diverse skin color in the textbooks even though the representation of deeper skin color such as type V (Brown) and type VI (Black) are still lacking. The findings of this study are expected to bring awareness about skin color representation in English textbooks published in Indonesia. The study could help Indonesian English textbook developers to be aware about the skin color representation and enlighten the developers to make more inclusive English textbooks.