Local culture in social studies textbooks and teachers' opinions: A case study

The purpose of this research is to investigate the ways in which local culture-related content is incorporated into Social Studies instruction and textbooks, and to explore how Social Studies teachers conceptualize and operationalize local culture within their classroom practices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 Social Studies teachers working in the province of Rize, and the 5th Grade Social Studies textbooks (Books 1 and 2) were analyzed in terms of intangible elements of local culture. The findings indicate that the majority of teachers include local culture in their teaching only to a limited extent, attributing this mainly to the intensity of the curriculum, insufficient lesson hours, and the limited emphasis on local culture in educational resources. Teachers also expressed that the scope of local culture content in the curriculum and textbooks is rather restricted. Content analysis revealed that the concept of local culture appeared only 12 times in the textbooks, whereas intangible cultural elements were predominantly represented at the national level, with a total of 106 references. These findings suggest that more frequent inclusion of local cultural elements in classroom practices may support students' learning processes and foster interaction and cohesion among learners from diverse cultural backgrounds. In this context, placing greater emphasis on culturally responsive teaching may enrich the learning environment by enabling students to recognize, express, and share their own local cultures in meaningful ways.