Work Culture Attitude in Junior High School Textbooks: A Content Analysis

 This research aimed to determine the extent to which junior high school textbooks have paid attention to the different components of work, culture and the three dimensions of the work culture attitude (cognitive, emotional and behavioral). To this aim, the effort is taken to answer seven major questions. The research method was descriptive content analysis and the research society was the junior high school textbooks published during the academic year 2002-2003.  Among junior high school textbooks fifteen books related to technology, social science, Islamic culture(religious teachings), Persian literature and experimental science of the first, second, and the third grades were selected through objective sampling. The research instrument was the researcher made content analysis checklist. Research findings analyzed based on descriptive and analytic statistics criteria, are as follows:  1) Among Junior high school textbooks, vocational textbooks referred to work culture 171 times, but in 31 percent of the times all aspects of the work culture attitude were taken into consideration. This trend in social science books showed 316 times and %41, in experimental science books 45 times and %78, in Islamic culture and religions teaching and in Persian Literature textbooks there were 30, and 32 references to the cognitive aspect of work culture where as no attention was made to other aspects (emotional and behavioral).   2) Among the three grades, the textbooks of the first grade had 206 references to the work culture, and in only 30% of the cases all aspects of work culture were taken into consideration. In second textbooks, 245 references and only 68.5%, and in third grade textbooks 146 references were observed and 39%.  3) In all junior high school textbooks, 597 references to the cognitive aspect of work culture, 389 references (65.1%) to the emotional aspect and 217 references (36.3%) to the behavioral aspect were observed. Among the above references to the cognitive aspects, 226 references (37.8%) were direct and 367 references (60.9%) were indirect. Among the components, the vocational safety and hygiene with 132 and group cooperation with 112 references had the highest references and the participation in performing the tasks, honesty in performing the task components, and committed criticism with only one reference each component had the lowest references.