A content analysis on the texts on theme of national culture in Turkish textbooks

The aim of this study is to evaluate the texts on theme of "National Culture" in Turkish textbooks prepared for middle school level (5-8 grades) in terms of cultural elements. Data set of the research consists of the middle school (5, 6, 7 and 8th grade) Turkish textbooks taught since the academic years of 2005-2006. Among these books, a total of 22 textbooks that can be accessed by the researcher were determined as data set. Document analysis, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in this study. Content analysis, one of the qualitative data analysis techniques, was used to analyze the data obtained from the research. As a result of this research, it has been determined that all cultural elements in the examined texts were given through 18 themes. These themes include "epics, handicrafts, emotions, custom and traditions, people, language, art, folk dances, local products, short stories, lullabies, folk songs, holidays and festivals, Turkish cuisine, traditional games, history, traditional sports and crafts". A total of 18 themes in which cultural elements have been conveyed in Turkish textbooks were repeated 74 times at all class levels. These themes repeated most at the level of 7th class (f=27) followed by 6th class (f=19), 8th class (f=17) and 5th class (f=11), respectively. The most used theme among the themes in which the cultural elements in Turkish textbooks are conveyed has been determined as emotions (f=17). Traditions, local products, lullabies, traditional sports and craft themes have been used only once at all class levels in this research.