A content analysis of moral themes in selected first-grade social studies textbooks.

摘要

This study examines the moral education content of the teacher's edition of three grade one social studies textbooks. The identified moral themes are honesty, obedience, respect for authority/elders, concern for others, and industriousness. The textbook selection is based on the following criteria: (a) includes an early childhood education program, (b) published on or after 1989, (c) major social studies textbook publisher, and (d) accompanied by a teacher's edition.;Nine readers/coders participated in the content analysis process. They were selected based on their expertise on early childhood education, content analysis, moral/character education, and social studies curriculum. To establish reliability, an orientation and training session for the readers/coders was conducted before the analysis began. A practice exercise using a common text and the contingency table was undertaken to apply the categories and recording units. The inter-coder reliability was established at 80%. That is, at least 80% of the citations made by the readers/coders in each category were similar. Where there was disagreement, a consensus was made.;A hierarchical log-linear analysis was used to treat the data. To determine the best model that could offer an acceptable fit with the data, a backward elimination process was executed. The best model that was generated in the screening process was the saturated model. Odds-ratios were computed as a follow-up procedure.;The data analysis indicates significant interactions and relationships between the textbooks, moral themes, and degrees of depth. The interaction of a specific pair of variable constantly changes whenever a second variable is included. Each textbook is uniquely different in presenting the moral themes.;The following conclusions emerge from the analysis: (a) the three grade one social studies textbooks addressed the moral themes in varying degrees, (b) the five selected moral themes appeared to be addressed in a limited basis with regard to the frequency of incidents, (c) the moral themes were introduced and presented more at the awareness level rather than at some depth, and (d) the moral themes that perpetuate the American value system did not appear to be systematically addressed.