Constituents of Political Development as Mirrored in High School Textbooks

Political development is among concepts that appeared in the post WW2 literature. To some such development is prerequisite to economic development and as such requires a much more serious attention by the educational system. Only if the curriculum, of which the textbooks are a major part, focuses on political development, one can hope for economic development. To assess the situation in Iranian educational system, a set of high school textbooks are content analyzed for the constituents of political development, derived from the Iranian constitution and religious texts. Calculation and analysis of the Index of Student Involvement (ISI) revealed a varying degree of attention paid to the said concept. Chi Squared tests also show a significant difference between grades in terms of covering topics related to political development. Furthermore, such coverage was imbalanced across the contents.