Sosyal Bilgiler Ders Kitaplarında Müzeler ve Tarihi Mekânlar: Bir Doküman Analizi

Abstract

While school activities have a limited connection with real life, activities outside the school contribute to the development of students' ability to observe, work autonomously, and problems solving. Out-of-school education enables students to gain experience by connecting with real life. The focus of this study lies in the examination of the potential of social studies textbooks, especially contents about museums and historical places, in increasing students' out-of-school learning, autonomous learning, curiosity, and research skills. In this regard, finding out how the museums and historical places included in the social studies textbooks and their frequency are needed. Therefore, the current paper aims at analyzing the Social Studies textbooks for fourth-seventh-grade students and T.R. History of Revolution and Kemalism textbook for eighth-grade students regarding museums and historical places. Accordingly, the content analysis method was applied to all social studies textbooks used in the 2020-2021 school year. Using descriptive analysis, museums and historical places included in the textbooks were grouped into image, text, image+text, and assessment and evaluation categories. The obtained results indicated that museums and historical places are mostly included in the learning domain of culture and heritage. The frequency of museums and historical places in the textbooks increased as the grade level of the textbook increased. Museums and historical places are mostly described in textbooks in image and image-text format. The results of the present paper contributed to the literature by revealing the potential of textbooks about making students aware of museums and historical places and increasing their interest in such places as well as improving their autonomous learning ability.