An Investigation of the Components of Political Education in Social Studies Textbooks at Elementary Level

This research is aimed at investigating the degree of attention towards the components of political education including: awareness, self-knowledge, independence, freedom, and justice in social studies textbooks at elementary level in the academic year of 2015-2016. This is a descriptive research which follows content analysis method. The unit of analysis includes writings, illustrations, and exercises of social studies textbooks of elementary level, which covered 402 pages totally. The community and the statistical sample of the research were social textbooks of elementary school social studies. The results of data analysis revealed that the related component under study were considered in the following rate: self-knowledge, 96 times; awareness, 91 times; independence, 83 times; justice, 35 times; and freedom, 21 times. As illustrated, the component of self-knowledge stands higher than other components, and the least attention is devoted to the component of freedom.