An Analysis Cultural Contents of a Junior High School English Textbook

This study aims to investigate cultural content as well as to find out students' perceptions and interests in cultural content in English textbooks of grade 7 junior high school. The research method applied in this study is a qualitative method in which the researcher conducts research by means of book analysis and interviews. The results revealed that in the English textbook “English Starter Interactive Book” grade 7 junior high school there is cultural content in accordance with the grand theory used, namely the first theory by Cortazzi and Jin (1999) about a good textbook must have 3 characters, including Source Culture, Target Culture and International Culture. The second theory by Adaskou, Britten & Fahsi (1990) about cultural content materials can be represented by four cultural frameworks, namely Aesthetic Sense, Sociological Sense, Pragmatic Sense and Semantic Sense. The results of the study further revealed that with the positive perceptions by students about cultural content in the English textbook “English Starter Interactive Book” grade 7 junior high school, the researchers also concluded that students were interested in learning cultural content in the book.