Multicultural elements in textbooks

This study investigates how multicultural elements are represented in newly revised Chinese senior secondary English textbooks and how such representations are mediated in classroom practice. Using a mixed-methods design, we conducted a systematic content analysis of verbal and visual materials based on an integrated framework and triangulated these findings with semi-structured interviews and instructional materials from three teachers. The textbook analysis identified 197 cultural references in verbal content and 50 in visuals, showing a strong concentration on local Chinese culture and inner-circle contexts, with limited representation of outer-circle and expanding-circle cultures. Across cultural locations, cultural products and named figures dominated, while cultural perspectives were infrequent and largely absent from visual materials, indicating that culture is predominantly framed as descriptive knowledge rather than interpretive engagement. Teacher data suggest that cultural teaching is pragmatically filtered by student proficiency, time constraints, and assessment pressures, with cultural content often used to support comprehension rather than sustained reflection. These findings indicate a partial misalignment between curriculum aspirations for cultural awareness and the forms of cultural representation and enactment made available through textbooks and classroom practice, highlighting cultural awareness as an enacted and contingent outcome shaped by interactions among curriculum intentions, material design, and teacher mediation.