Young Adults’ Awareness of Gender Roles, Beauty Canons and Stereotyped Behaviors When Exposed to TV Commercials. A Practical Application to the Analysis and Production of Class Materials

Abstract

[eng] Young adults and teenagers are particularly sensitive to the input they receive from sources like television. They are constantly exposed to images that disseminate discriminatory gender roles, oppressive beauty canons and stereotyped behaviors and thus, studying the impact of these materials on their perceptions and beliefs is essential. In order to do so, the theoretical background review looks at the most recent academic work on the topic. As for the practical section, this paper aims to put forward the idea that the education teenagers receive at school is the key to eliminating prejudices and discriminatory values in our current society. A didactic proposal has been designed as a tool to raise awareness and teach students to both identify problematic gender issues in their class materials, and help them stop its reproduction and dissemination in an EFL class.