To what extent Iranian primary school textbooks mirror the philosophy of heritage education?

Purpose This paper evaluates the content of Iranian primary school textbooks – as the fundamental educational tool in transmitting of key components – to highlight to what extent the content pursues the philosophy of heritage education. Heritage preservation, known to be fostering of the sustainable development, is successfully achieved through the education of young people. The philosophy of heritage education is to cultivate the sense of responsibility toward heritage preservation through the approaches of education through heritage, about heritage and for heritage in which students obtain knowledge, understand the value and develop their attitudes. Design/methodology/approach This study applies the content analysis approach to evaluate the subject textbooks of the Iranian primary school curriculum. The content analysis was conducted for 51 textbooks across nine subjects and the teacher guidebooks for the art and physical education subjects. Historic country of Iran with a rich local and world cultural and natural heritage is significant context for this study. Findings The findings show that, however, heritage elements are applied for conveying the content of some subjects, there is the lack of clarifying of the concept and importance of heritage and cultivating the sense of responsibility toward its preservation. Originality/value The results contribute significantly in the heritage education literature as well as improving heritage education in Iran by highlighting the key points which should be considered to design heritage education programs.