Investigating the Position of Multicultural Components in Official Curriculum (Sample Study: The book of Social Studies for the First Year of High School in Iran)

Subject Areas :

farzaneh pakdaman ¹ , mehdi davaee ² , Ali Akbar Khosravi ³ , hamidreza rezazadeh ⁴

1 - PhD Student, Department of Education and Counseling, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 - Assistant Professor, Department of Training and Counseling, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
3 - Associate Professor, Department of Training and Counseling, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
4 - assistant professor,Department of Educational Methods and Counseling, Faculty of Educational sciences and psychology,central Tehran branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran ,iran

Received: 2022-05-21 Accepted : 2022-09-10 Published : 2022-10-23

Keywords: Shannon's entropy, multicultural components, official curriculum,

Abstract :

Considering the diversity of ethnicities and the multiplicity of ethnic lived experiences in Iran, the influential role of education in official curricula and content of books and giving ethnic identity to students of different cultures is undeniable.The purpose of this study was to investigate the multicultural components in the official curriculum of the first year of high school in Iran. This descriptive research included documentary analysis and Shannon entropy content analysis. The content analysis unit was text, pictures and textbook activities. By purposeful sampling method, the sample included the content of 3 volumes of social studies books of the first secondary school (7th, 8th, 9th) with 554 pages. To evaluate validity in the opinion of experts, and Scott's pi method was used to evaluate the reliability. Based on the findings, only 6% of the three parts of the content of the reviewed books paid attention to the desirable components of ethnicity. Shannon's entropy analysis showed that component 21 (paying attention to the common national identity of the ethnic groups) with 31 items has the highest frequency and the least amount is component 8 (preventing prejudice about certain ethnicities and cultures) component 14 (paying attention to the concept of peace and friendship) with the frequency was 7.The findings show that the position of multicultural components in the official curriculum of the first secondary school is largely neglected and needs to be revised.