Gender stereotypes play an important role in education, reflecting and shaping ideological attitudes and teaching practices. Conservative currents often support traditional gender roles, which is reflected in patriarchal educational practices, while feminists actively promote gender equality and oppose stereotyping. This research paper deals with the issue of gender stereotypes in 16 literature textbooks for lower grades of elementary school in the Croatian context. The focus of this research lies in identifying the presence of the reproduction of patriarchal patterns and at the same time finding elements of feminist pedagogy in the analyzed materials. The research results showed that there is continuity and discontinuity of gender stereotypes in teaching materials over time. Women are the authors of the analyzed textbooks, texts and illustrations, but they are still underrepresented as characters in texts and appendices. Questions and tasks are predominantly gender-sensitive, but stereotypical identifications of professional and family roles still prevail, along with a heteronormative depiction of the family. The woman is depicted as a caring person with the child as the highest value, while the man is connected to the public sphere and focused on personal progress and education. Croatian textbooks mostly retain a conservative approach, and they still lack the presence of feminist texts and intersectionality, but progress is noticeable in certain aspects of the analysis.