Ders kitaplarında kültürel mirasın sunumu: Türkiye'deki 4. ve 5. sınıf sosyal bilgiler ders kitaplarındaki (1974-2009) görsellerin incelenmesi

This study explores the Turkish Ministry of Education?s representation of the cultural heritage theme and cultural heritage items in Social Studies textbooks. In this regard, this thesis particularly discusses the role of cultural heritage items in the representation of Anatolian civilizations and the Turkish past, the types of the cultural heritage items that are represented, and the change in the cultural heritage notion over time.4th and 5th grade Social Studies textbooks published by the Turkish Ministry of Education in 1974-2009 provide the main sample for this study. The 6th and 7th grade Social Studies textbooks published in 2005 are also included, since the former 4th and 5th grade Social Studies curriculum was expanded to 6th and 7th grades after the education reform in 2004. Content analysis documents the quantity and allocation of illustrations in the textbooks, and in-depth qualitative analysis is conducted to interpret the illustration-text relation.The thesis shows that cultural heritage items, particularly the historic and archaeological monuments, are indispensable components of the Social Studies textbooks? content. They were often represented to prove the Turkish nation?s superiority, and the majority of them belong to the Ottoman and the Seljuk periods. In addition, while earlier textbooks emphasized the protection of cultural heritage as a ?national duty?, in recent textbooks this view is replaced with the world heritage notion.