A Content Analysis of Social Studies Textbooks for Junior High School Based on the Social Welfare Theory

The theory of Social Welfare deals with the individuals’ behavior within the society and the quality of their relationships. It is of much importance for the school curriculum to incorporate such behaviors in its textbooks. In order to assess the extent to which such incorporation has been achieved within the Social Studies textbooks for junior high school, three of these books were content analyzed using a checklist constructed based on the said theory. As such, it defines Social Welfare as having five constituents, namely cohesion, solidarity, reception, cooperation, and actualization, the frequency of which was counted and then analyzed in terms of level of importance. The findings are indicative of high level of importance associated with cohesion, reception, and cooperation, leaving the other two components as low in significance. Nevertheless, it can be said the distribution of the components in the reviewed textbook is to an extent moderate and balanced, yet a review of the content and an increase in the coverage of less covered components is in order.