Representation of People With Disabilities in The Algerian Middle School Textbooks of English

Abstract

The study at hand attempted to examine how the concept of “disability” and “people with disabilities “ are presented in middle school textbooks titled “My Book of English “ across the four levels. It seeks to investigate throughout a textual / content analysis the extent to which people with disabilities / the invisible minority are included. (Jensen, Herreboden & Anderassen, 2021, p.1). The latter can help learners develop a culture of inclusion. In order to achieve the aims of the research, data were collected through the use of a checklist which is adapted by the “Cunningsworth“ framework. The final results revealed the inclusion of people with disabilities at a certain level and with varying frequency; people with disabilities were portrayed in pictures whereas their inclusion in context was tremendously limited. In the first book, people with disabilities were solely portrayed in pictures and included only three types of disabilities which are physical imobility, visual impairment, and learning disability