English abstract
This study aimed at investigating the inclusion of the concepts of Political Geography in Social Studies textbooks for Grades 3 – 12 in the Sultanate of Oman. To answer the study questions a list of political geography concepts that should be included in these textbooks was prepared. The list was derived from educational literature and previous research in this field. The list was validated by specialized referees. The final version of the list consists of 108 concepts, distributed over seven domains: Political Geography concept, State, Borders, International Organizations, Alliances and Blocs, Elections Geography, Identity and Citizenship and Global Conflict. The researcher analyzed the social studies textbooks in the light of political geography concepts' list, using Content Analysis technique; with the idea as a unit of analysis. The researcher then checked this list further by seeking the opinion of two assistants to analyze a random sample representing about 25% of the targeted sample and a further analysis was conducted by the researcher himself; the ratio of agreement between the researcher and the assistant analysts ranged between (80.32%) to (90%). The findings of the study were as follows:
- A list of political geography concepts that should be included in social studies textbooks for grades (3 – 12) was built. - Textbooks concentrate on the domains of: state, Political Geography concept and Identity and Citizenship. However the domains of: International Organizations, Alliances and Blocs, Borders, Global Conflict and Elections Geography did not get the proper coverage in the textbooks in terms of repetition and percentages in all textbooks. 1 - There is a variance of the inclusion of political geography concepts according to grades, the twelfth and eleventh grades got the highest percentage of inclusion, followed by the ninth and eighth grades, Whereas the remaining grades have the lowest inclusion of concepts. In light of these findings, several recommendations were proposed concerning the inclusion of the following domains: International Organizations, Alliances and Blocs, Borders, Global Conflict and Elections Geography in future textbooks
