The Correspondence ‎of Culture and Creativity: A Case of Struggle Between Localized and Internationalized ELT Textbooks

Creativity and culture are two intertwined but most unexplored phenomena in language and ‎linguistic discipline, especially in English textbooks’ domains. Hence, the purpose of the study ‎was 1) to investigate the existence and distribution of cultural and creativity‏-‏related contents in ‎two ELT textbooks based on Cortazzi and Jin (1999) textbook classification and ‎ investment ‎theory of creativity, and 2) to examine the confluence of creativity components and culture‏ ‏elements. Using basic content analysis, the researcher analyzed the creative components and ‎cultural elements of two ELT textbooks prepared and utilized in Iran (localized textbook) and ‎the UK (internationalized textbook). The researcher found that the ELT textbooks of Iran ‎‎(Prospect 1) and the UK (Teen2Teen 1) both included components of creativity. In Iranian ‎Prospect 1, knowledge was the most prominent element, but in the internationalized Teen2Teen 1 ‎‎(UK) book, intelligence, motivation, environment, and personality were mostly observed. ‎Furthermore, the findings revealed that in the localized textbook (Prospect 1), except for source ‎products, the other elements of culture, such as persons, practice, and perspectives, are absent. ‎On the other hand, in Internationalized Teen2Teen book 1, the global products of culture are ‎mostly presented, and the other elements, such as persons, practice, and perspectives, are ‎underrepresented. Thus, this study’s findings can help policy makers, material designers and ‎teachers to modify the content of ELT textbooks to obtain better advantages.‎