Content analysis of primary school's social science textbooks according to the teacher's viewpoints on social skills

The purpose of this research was to study social science textbooks of primary schools based on teaching social skills to students. In addition to the analysis of the contents of the above mentioned textbooks, the researcher tried to benefit from the viewpoints of teachers. The research population included:1) Primary school's social textbooks (grades 3, 4 & 5), in which civil education section is selected and analyzed, 2) the teachers of primary schools (831 teachers) working in two districts of Orumiye. The sample which consisted of 262 teachers was estimated with Cochran formula. The research instrument for collecting the teachers’ views were questionnaires developed based on Likert scale. Also, the social skills presented in the above mentioned textbooks was investigated using the researcher-made checklist of social skills. The data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and post hoc sheffe test.The results showed that the amount of social skills available in social science textbooks was totally at a middle level & lower than middle. The number & percent of social science categories at the third-grade textbooks were more than the forth- grade one and the number & percent of the above mentioned categories in both textbooks were more than the fifth-grade textbooks. The sequence & consistency-which are the two principles of content organization- are appropriately considered regarding the social skills presented in the above mentioned textbooks. Most of the teachers believed that the content of social science textbooks is not proportional to the time allocated to teaching them. The pictures available at social science textbooks were at average level. Also, the amount of pictures at third-grade textbook were more than that of the fourth-grade and in third and fourth-grade textbooks were more than that of the fifth grade textbook. In general, third-grade teachers believed that the contents of social science textbook allocated to third-grade could help the third-grade students to learn the social skills, however, fourth and fifth-grade social science textbooks do no help the students to learn social skills as good as the previous textbook.