The status of artistic facets & content structure in the textbooks of art education at junior high schools: A step toward recognizing neglected curriculum

One of the missions of general education is the development of art capacities in learners. Art production and criticism, aesthetics, the art history of Iran and other nations as the content structure in the textbooks of art educationare some of subjects that deserve to be considered deeply by curriculum developers. This may be done in view of the intended activities planned by educators to foster student's potentialities. This study was conducted through content analysis. The sounce consisted of the contents all text-books published centrally by government for junior high schools in 2009. In the process of content analysis, units of study were themes, images and exercises. Coding was done according to deductive method and on a basis of subject and structural topics of art education. To measure the reliability, 10% of content was coded by a second evaluator: the rate of agreement was 86%. The results indicated that madescending order aesthetics, art production and art history in Islam and Iran consist ituted the greatest dimensions of art training, and designing and painting, writing calligraphy and graphics represented the first to the third priorities in the content structure in junior high school text-books. The results showed that important aspects like music, art criticism, the art history of other nations and dramatic arts in art education were neglected.