Assessing the state of education in terms of images and phrases related to old age in school textbooks

Aging population in the world raises the need of education to prepare people for old age. Considering the decisive role of school textbooks on students' beliefs and behaviors about the elderly, the aim of this study was to investigate the status of education in terms of images and phrases related to aging in school textbooks.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using citation analysis method. The study population was all elementary and first high school textbooks on aging issue. The data were analyzed using SPSS 22.

The results showed that there were images of the elderly in almost all grades and levels of education. The most number of images of the elderly were in the third-grade textbooks of the first high school (141 cases) and the lowest one was in the second grade textbooks of the elementary school. Review of textbooks in terms of using words such as aged, old, elderly, oldest old and similar words indicated that in all grades and levels of education, related and evocative words with this age group were used. The second grade of first high school textbooks had the most number (256 items) and the highest proportion of these words.

Given the number and proportion of using images and words related to aging in textbooks, a relatively good amount of dealing with the subject was observed in elementary and first high school grades. Therefore, as the aging population grows, reforming the amount and content of educational materials in schools is essential.