ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyse the cultural contents of an English language textbook used in a private Islamic school in Southern Thailand. The chapter evaluates the embedded language and cultural contents in the textbook in order to identify consistencies with learners’ Islamic cultures and values. Cultural data of texts and images were analysed using qualitative content analysis and then evaluated for how it reflected (1) the learners’ cultures, (2) native cultures and (3) other cultures. The results showed that the textbook lacks sufficient Islamic cultural depictions and is largely dominated by Western and other cultural reflections. This implicates that Islamic teachers, in their choice of English language textbooks for Islamic schools, should choose books that integrate both the Islamic learners’ cultural contents and global contents so that the learners will not only be exposed to foreign global cultures but their own local Thai Islamic cultures.
