Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Azade Ebadi ¹
• Bahman Gorjian ²
• Elkhas Veysi ³
• AliAsqar sultani ⁴

¹ PhD student in Department of Linguistics, Abadan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadan, Iran

² Associate professor in Department of Linguistics, Abadan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadan, Iran (Corresponding author)

³ Associate professor in Department of Linguistics, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

⁴ Associate professor in Department of Linguistics, Bagher-al Olum University, Qom, Iran

Abstract

Introduction
Education plays an important role in identity formation and its amplification. As textbooks are suitable means to change or form beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes and students have limited access to other identity seeking sources in this period their lives, elementary training importance is more significant.
Features such as identity sharing, the transfer of experience through lived one, socialization and any other latent structure that reflects the common values of a society are precisely the conceptual foundations that Bourdieu calls school nationalism (Bourdieu, 1397:327). Although school may distribute the obligated culture and identity of a society among students unbalancedly, but it widely distributes and places the recognition.
Textbooks as something that shape the structure of emotion in the school setting, are the special characteristics of a country. Identity and specialness of a country are its logic and in fact its mental image. In fact, textbooks content is a stimulus that can be effective in shaping students’ national beliefs.
In achieving identity various factors such as family, educational institution, socio-political and cultural systems governing society, media and press, etc. are influential. In this regard, the institution of education after the family is the most effective factor in the development of people identity.
Students in each country are considered to be the best human resources in social (collective) life and have an effective share in ensuring the cultural and national life of their country. Undoubtedly, the identity crisis is the most important social damage in today’s world, the signs of which can be seen in all socio-cultural, economic and political relations. From this perspective, identity as one of the major categories in social and cultural processes is affected by the process of globalization and its consequences.
Materials and Methods
This investigation has been done based on Laclau and Muffe Theory. Data analysis was done based on conceptualization and discourse semiotics proposed by Soltani (2014). There are two semiotic systems, i.e., image and text in textbooks; therefore using the above method for analyzing and interpretation of text and images in social studies textbooks of elementary school (First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth graders social studies textbooks) published in (2017) includes three stages: first, textual analyzing in which each book analyzed individually. In this stage, sampling and analyzing were done out of written text and images. Second, intertextual analyzing in which all mentioned textbooks analyzed in relation to each other based on Laclau and Muffe theory. In the third stage, contextual analyzing was done in which propounded discourses in textbooks were analyzed regarding to macro social and cultural discourses based on Laclau and Muffe theory. Soltani (2014) in his discourse semiotic method has tried to propose a model based on which long texts analysis be facilitated. Combining his method with Laclau and Muffe theory would result in one that has micro and macro explanations simultaneously.
Discussion of results and conclusions
The findings indicated that giving priority to religious discourse and presenting Iranian identity based on Islamic ideology, a critical picture of all governments before Islam development and Islamic Revolution, reinforcing Occidentalism and dividing the world to Islamic/non-Islamic is the all that students learn from social sciences studies textbooks till twelve. So, it seems that Iran government is based on Islamic culture; in this sense, Iranian identity is a reconstructed culture to restore the former societies against west culture. Therefore, in Iran, government is formed by defining a legitimated and Shia’-oriented culture and naturalizing it in a systematic way through tools such as education.
Boosting traditional identification in educational textbooks is what is generally followed by textbooks authors in Iran; that is, the close connection of space, time, and culture in a given land that meets identity needs; in this sense human beings easily achieve the identity and the meaning they need within their small, stable, and united worlds. But the reality is that the media, advertising, and the globalization process in general have greatly reduced the possibility of traditional identification, and continuation of this practice in textbooks could lead to a kind of identity crisis

Keywords

• : Discourse
• Identity
• Laclau and Muffe
• Elementry School
• Social textbooks
• Iran