Investigating the evolution of civics textbooks for junior high school social studies in grade 1-9 curriculum guidelines

The original aims of grade 1-9 curriculum reform were to deregulate, integrate the curriculum, and reduce knowledge loads, emphasizing the student-centered curriculum perspective and cultivation of basic competences. Despite the fact that the implementation of grade 1-9 curriculum reform should have made textbook compilation more suitable for learners, the economic effects have complicated the development of the textbooks. This study uses the K version of civics textbooks for junior high school social studies to explore the evolution of textbooks and the respective curriculum perspectives. In-depth interviews were conducted with 5 key persons who participated in editing K version civics textbooks and made reference to 4 editions of textbooks. The results revealed that (1) textbooks are the product of market economy effects combined with teacher preferences, (2) civics textbooks tend to be constrained to the curriculum perspectives of social adaptation, subject matter structures and the teacher- centered approach, and (3) the implementation of curriculum reform and the development of textbooks are not coherently related.