High school sociology textbooks, as identity documents, serve as an arena for reproducing dominant discourses. Despite scattered qualitative studies, no comprehensive picture of the issues in these textbooks exists. Aiming to synthesize previous findings and design an explanatory model, this study employed the qualitative meta-synthesis method based on Sandelowski and Barroso's seven step model. From 45 studies retrieved from Iranian databases (2009–2026), 16 were selected using quality criteria, and through thematic analysis, three macro dimensions were identified: ideological discursive (the “we/they” dichotomy and the highlighting of particular values), structural content (passive and memory oriented content, and an unbalanced distribution of skills), and identity representation (gender inequality and the dominance of passive citizenship). The findings revealed the extra textual factor of “target oriented policy making” and the core code of “the ideological reproduction cycle in the political economy of the curriculum,” through which the political structure produces ideological and inactive content, thereby reproducing the law abiding passive citizen. The conceptual model explains the challenges not as resulting from weak authorship, but as the consequence of this self reinforcing cycle, offering implications for policymakers and textbook authors.