Investigating Social Inequalities in the School Textbooks of the Constitutional Period (Case Study: Ta lim-ol-Atfal, Ketab Ali, Ta dib-ol-Atfal and Tarbiyat nesvan)

Social inequalities may be divided into three categories, namely class, gender and ethnic inequalities. Many representations could be found in the documents and sources remained from different historical periods. The importance of paying attention to the contents of school books lies in the fact that they reflect the dominant beliefs of the society regarding the socialization of individuals and their social role-taking. The current study focuses on the social inequalities found in school textbooks of the constitutional period (1895-1911). This is a documentary research which has been conducted through content analysis and situational context of words aims to address questions such as gender inequality in the school textbooks of the constitutional period, the role of the concept of gender in the kind of socialization experienced by individuals especially girls, and the most important roles expected of them. In these textbooks, the type of relationship of women’s roles with the role of men is seen in three categories: 1- the roles of women depending on men, 2- the roles equal between men and women, 3- independence of women’s roles from men. The results of the researchers’ investigation in this study indicated that the instances of role independence and lack of social inequalities could only be seen in the book entitled Tarbiyat nesvan (The Education of Women)..