Content Analysis of Social Studies Books at Middle Schools: Cultural Heritage Components in Focus

One of the most important functions of the education system of the Islamic Republic of Iran in terms of its overall goals is preservation and transmission of the cultural heritage as one of the most fundamental pillars of identity consolidation, creativity, and national self-efficacy through designing book contents for students. Taking this into consideration, the aim of the current paper was to investigate how much attention was paid to the components of the cultural heritage by social studies books at middle schools.
The purpose of this applied study was to determine the extent to which the components of the cultural heritage were emphasized in social studies books of the middle schools with content analysis as the research method. The statistical population included all of the middle school books in 2015-2016 and the sample size was selected based on the desirable materials of the social studies books using purposive sampling. The findings showed that books, manuscripts, containers, mosques, palaces, inscriptions, reliefs, personalities and religion were the most frequent components. In contrast, the least frequent components were found to be Jewelry, slates, caravansaries, reservoirs, historic gardens, the art and skill of carpentry, performing arts, stories and legends.