A Content Analysis of Elementary social studies Textbooks based on Philosophy for Children program with the orientation of multicultural education

The current study aims to analyze the content of elementary school social studies books in terms of the amount of attention to philosophy for children program with the orientation of multicultural education. The descriptive research was of the quantitative content analysis type using the Shannon entropy method. The research tool was the researcher's checklist made of the criteria of philosophical thinking (exploratory, argumentative, and interactive) and the components of multicultural education (15 components) whose validity was approved by a specialized jury, and its reliability was measured by Scott’s method with an overall agreement of 0.87. The entire statistical population was selected as a sample, including 4 volumes of social studies books for the third to sixth grades. The units of analysis included text, images, and book activities. Finally, 48 components were identified, and the results show the highest level of attention to the concept of "materials, tools and educational environment", followed by the concepts of nation/language, teaching methods and cultural communication. The components of "justice", "equality and anti-discrimination", "dignity and human rights", "gender", "valuation", "respect for different opinions" and "peaceful life" also lacked reflection, which shows an unbalanced distribution. It is the components. Therefore, this program has been neglected in the social studies curriculum of elementary school and considering the pluralistic society of Iran, it is suggested to revise the textbooks