Symbols of National Identity of Iran and Afghanistan in the Tenth and Eleventh-grade History Books

Document Type : جغرافیای تاریخی خراسان بزرگ

Abstract

Today, national identity is one of the important issues in developmental programs of any country. Meanwhile, the ministry of education plays an important role in introducing the national identity as the most important unit that grants identity to the community. In this regard, one of the influential academic courses is history, which shows the past identity of a society to make it tangible and understandable in a group of community members who are in the age range of finding their identity. This study is a descriptive and analytical research performed to determine the symbols of national identities of Iran and Afghanistan in the 10th and 11th-grade history books in the field of literature and humanities. In addition, it was aimed to show the level of attention to this issue and the consequences of lack of attention to highlighting these symbols. Results obtained by quantitative analysis using SPSS version 18 demonstrated that the national identity symbols of Iran and Afghanistan presented in the mentioned books had a mutual origin in terms of culture and history and included the flag, national anthem, religious celebrities, national celebrities, customs, literary books, historical works, and buildings. Evidently, the level of using national identity symbols was higher in history books of Iran at each grade, compared to the history books of Afghanistan. Among the symbols, the most attention has been paid to national celebrities and historical works and buildings of the two countries.
Keywords: National Identity, Iran, Afghanistan, Ministry of education, History Book