The purpose of this study is to expose the limitations of existing perspectives that social studies textbooks perceive only as a means of knowledge transfer and to recognize the possibility of elementary social studies textbooks that can actively contribute to social studies learning. In this study, we first looked at the existing perspective of social studies textbooks at the epistemology and educational perspective, secondly presented ‘the metaphorical perspective’ through Richard Rorty’s epistemology, and thirdly explored what the social studies textbook means to social studies learning from an existing perspective and ‘the metaphorical perspective’. As a result of exploration, first, the existing perspective allowed social studies textbooks to serve as reference books as imitations of the curriculum, and limited their learning to the extent that students remember and recall the contents of the textbook. Second, ‘the metaphorical perspective’ allows social studies textbooks to function as a space where students’ experiences and expressions related to their learning content can be revealed. In this study, we confirm that social studies textbooks can actively contribute to actual social awareness and knowledge composition by embracing students’ diverse language expressions from ‘the metaphorical perspective’. This suggests that social studies textbooks should be developed or studied with interest in the context and language of students.