Reviewing the Concepts of Culture and Ethnicity in Elementary School's Social Studies Course Books

For the purpose of the study to achieve, the teachers’ content analysis the elementary course books of social studies were considered. The study was done in Uromia, Iran; 223 teachers of social studies of the 3rd, the 4th, the 5th and the 6th grades were put under investigation. The data collection instrument was Likert-scale questionnaire for teachers to comment. To check the ethnic and cultural issues in the above-mentioned course books a checklist of ethnicity and culture was prepared. Descriptive statistics were estimated and to analyze the study’s hypotheses, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was run. The findings showed that the ethnic and cultural awareness in social studies course books was mediocre. Moreover, social studies teachers believed that the content of the third-grade course book is more considerate about cultural issues than the fourth and the fifth-grade course books. Also, the sixth-grade course book, especially in the last chapters, valuable ethnic and cultural information about the history of Iranian ethnicities are offered to students.