Evaluation of Environmental Considerations within Iranian Elementary School Social Studies Curriculum

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the attention to environmental factors in Iranian elementary school social studies curriculum. In this study, a descriptive method was used to identify environmental components and a content analysis method was used to evaluate and analyze the curriculum of social studies in elementary school. The statistical population of the study was the content analysis of the social studies curriculum of the elementary school of Iran which from this population, the fifth- and sixth-grade elementary school social studies curriculum was selected by the purposeful method. The data collection tool was the Objective Analysis List, Textbook Content Analysis List, and Teacher's Guidebook Content Analysis List, which was developed after studying the theoretical foundations and legal bases, and then its validity was determined by science-education experts. The unit of analysis of the sentences contained in the textbooks is the texts of the goals and the textbook of the teacher. In the content analysis section, the most important findings show that in the social studies curriculum of Iranian elementary schools in the cognitive aspect, skillful dimension and attitude dimension towards environmental components 9.72%, 5.89%, and 4.01%, respectively which indicates the lack of attention to this important issue. Keywords:Environment,Curriculum,Environmental Curriculum,Primary school.