پژوهشگاه فرهنگ، هنر و ارتباطات فصلنامه مطالعات هنر 2981-250X 4 4 2026 02 20 Representation of Children’s Rights in Multimodal Text-Image Interactions: A Critical Analysis of the Third-Grade Persian Textbook Based on the Kress and van Leeuwen Framework بازنمایی حقوق کودکان در تعاملات چندوجهی نوشتار و تصویر؛ تحلیل انتقادی کتاب فارسی پایه سوم ابتدایی بر مبنای الگوی کرس و ون‌لیوون 51 76 245776 10.22083/ssa.2026.582887.1134 FA مریم جلالی دانشیار، گروه زبان و ادبیات فارسی، دانشکده ادبیات و علوم انسانی، دانشگاه شهید بهشتی، تهران، ایران. (نویسنده مسئول) ma_jalali@sbu.ac.ir 0000-0002-9674-0059 فاطمه بنویدی استادیار، عضو هیئت علمی فرهنگستان هنر، فرهنگستان هنر، تهران، ایران. benvidi@honar.ac.ir Journal Article 2026 01 27 Introduction: Primary school textbooks are multimodal educational media that play an important role in children’s civic and legal socialization. Drawing on multimodality theory, this study views meaning as emerging through the interaction of text, images, color, and layout, with visual elements playing a central role in shaping interpretation and values. Although the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasizes children’s rights to dignity, participation, identity, and appropriate education, little attention has been given to how these rights are represented visually in textbooks. This study examines how children’s rights are constructed through the interaction of text and image in the illustrated stories of the 2022 third-grade Persian textbook, using a multimodal social semiotic and educational policy perspective.<br>Methods: This study employs a qualitative descriptive-analytical approach based on multimodal social semiotics. Four illustrated stories from the 2022 edition of the Iranian third-grade Persian textbook were selected through purposive sampling. The analysis draws on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) Grammar of Visual Design, examining representational, interactive, and compositional meanings. Indicators derived from selected articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child were used to assess how children’s rights are represented in both text and images. The analysis involved multimodal description, systematic coding, identification of rights-related themes, and comparison with the Convention to reveal recurring patterns relevant to educational policy.<br>Findings: The findings show that children’s rights are communicated through the interaction of text and images rather than by either mode alone. Four dominant multimodal patterns emerged. First, education is represented as an experiential process in which images reinforce the emotional and environmental dimensions of learning. Second, rights related to care, protection, and emotional support are conveyed mainly through visual elements such as facial expressions, body language, and spatial relationships. Third, identity and belonging are constructed through cultural symbols, meaningful places, and visual representations of individuality. Fourth, participatory rights are presented through dialogue supported by visual features that emphasize equality, interaction, and mutual respect. However, the analysis also reveals that several rights-including child labor, disability inclusion, and explicit anti-violence themes-receive limited attention, and visual resources are not always used consistently to strengthen rights-based learning.<br>Conclusion: This study confirms that the representation of children’s rights in primary school textbooks is inherently multimodal and cannot be adequately evaluated through textual analysis alone. Meaning emerges from the semiotic division of labor between language and image, consistent with multimodality theory.<br>Importantly, the distribution of meaning between modes is not merely aesthetic but policy-driven. Textbooks function as instruments of curriculum policy, and visual design decisions implicitly communicate institutional priorities. The partial or uneven visual representation of certain rights suggests the absence of explicit multimodal design guidelines within textbook production policies.<br>Accordingly, the study proposes three policy-oriented recommendations:<br>1. revising multimodal design guidelines to integrate children’s rights indicators;<br>2. diversifying visual narratives to include marginalized childhood experiences;<br>3. implementing pre-publication multimodal review mechanisms involving interdisciplinary experts.<br>By linking social semiotics with educational policy analysis, this research contributes a framework for evaluating textbooks as multimodal policy artifacts. It highlights the need for systematic integration of children’s rights principles into both textual and visual dimensions of educational materials کتاب‌های درسی به‌مثابه رسانه‌های چندوجهی، نقشی بنیادین در جامعه‌پذیری حقوقی کودکان دارند. مسئله اصلی این پژوهش، نارسایی در بازنمایی نظام‌مند و چندوجهی حقوق کودک در داستان‌های مصور کتاب فارسی پایه سوم ابتدایی (چاپ 1402) است. در این پژوهش هدف‌گذاری از تحلیل‌های صرفاً محتوایی به تحلیل سیاست‌پژوهانه، با روش کیفی و با تکیه بر نظریه چندوجهی و گرامر طراحی بصری کرس و ون‌لیوون، انجام شده و در آن به بررسی هم‌نشینی متن و تصویر در 4 داستان مصور پرداخته شده است. راه‌حل‌های سیاستی پیشنهاد شده بر پایه تحلیل داده‌های عینی، شامل «اصلاح الگوی تقسیم کار نشانه‌ای»، «تنوع‌بخشی به روایات بصری برای پوشش حقوق مغفول (مانند کودکان کار و دارای نیازهای ویژه)» و «تدوین دستورالعمل‌های چندوجهی برای طراحان کتاب‌های درسی» است. یافته‌ها نشان می‌دهد با وجود تعامل پویا میان متن و تصویر، خلأهایی در استفاده آگاهانه از ظرفیت‌های بصری برای تبیین کامل پیمان‌نامه حقوق کودک وجود دارد که نیازمند بازنگری راهبردی است. https://ssa.ricac.ac.ir/article_245776_5a6491e2542ac749913a15cc0fc45ba7.pdf