Critical Understanding of Intercultural Features in Middle School English Textbooks Based on the 2022 Revised National Curriculum of Korea

Abstract

This study aims to critically understand the cultural and intercultural features in middle school English textbooks based on the 2022 revised national curriculum of Korea. This study selected the nine sets of English language textbooks published in March, 2025 and a total of 144 reading texts and culture sections were analyzed using the comparative analysis method. The goals of textbook analysis are to investigate the diversity of cultural backgrounds, the presentation of cultural category suggested by Saemee and Nomnian (2021), and the representation of intercultural themes of reading texts and culture sections. The analytic results show that Korean middle school English textbooks included diverse cultural backgrounds, and cultural categories are somewhat imbalanced and inappropriate to be employed in English language textbooks. The intercultural representations tend to be presented in a simple and superficial way which is rarely related to critical multiculturalism. In the future, English language textbooks should be organized in a way that the cultural and intercultural content can offer the diverse intercultural activities that help EFL learners to understand the differences between various cultures around the world.