View
16
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 1
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran:
A Content Analysis of High School Sociology Textbooks
By: Fatemeh Givi [5613A013-2]
Supervisor: Professor Graham Law
Examiners:
Professor Keiko Sakurai
Professor Yuko Tarumi
Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Culture and Communications
Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies (GSICCS)
Waseda University
January 2015
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 2
Abstract
After the Islamic revolution in 1979, the Iranian government tried to stabilize Islamic
ideology in the society in many ways. One of the efficient media which the government used
to inject Islamic ideology in the society, was the educational system. After the revolution,
the government decided to change the school textbooks, in different time phases, in order to
coordinate them with Islamic beliefs. In a period (1980-83) called the Cultural Revolution,
not only the textbooks were revised to become Islamic; but also students, teachers and
university professors who do not believe in either Islam or Islamic Republic were expelled
by the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution.
Again in 2009, the Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei addressed university
professors and warned them about Western Humanities. Consequently, the Council for
Humanities Development and Promotion was established in 2009 to develop humanities
based on Islamic anthropology. In other words, the regime decided to re-Islamize the Islamic
textbooks. As a result, recently in 2010, social science textbooks of high school were totally
changed, as one of the first steps for creating Islamic humanities.
This dissertation aims to find out how and why the textbooks have been changed.
Thus, both versions of the books were analyzed to figure out what changes have been done
in order to create Islamic – or more Islamic – textbooks. The analyzed books are Sociology
1, Sociology 2, and Social Science (Sociology of World System), all published in 2013.
These new books were compared with the previous versions of them, published in 2003,
2007 and 2004, respectively. In order to have more reliable results, both qualitative and
quantitative research methods were used in this dissertation. The quantitative method deals
with the number of pages and pictures, to illustrate the apparent characteristics of the books.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 3
The more intensive and penetrative approach conducted is a qualitative one, content
analysis. With the addition of the interpretation of the text, there are lots of examples from
the original textbooks in order to strengthen my explanations.
In analyzing the old books, mainly two key points were considered; view of the
books toward the West and toward Islam. In comparison to the new books, these books
introduce the West in a more rational way, which means that the author of the book does not
want to repudiate all of the Western features. He tries to say that the West also has some
good points and wants students to believe so. Like other Iranian textbook, these sociology
textbooks contain Islamic examples as well.
The most important feature of the new books is that the books are written from a
theological and philosophical rather than a sociological viewpoint. In addition, there is
negative view toward the West in the books. Although the books are supposed to teach
Islamic sociology, the texts are more anti-Western rather than Islamic. In order to justify an
Islamic perception of society, the books need something else to be compared with Islam.
Hence the book puts the West against Islam to illustrate how inappropriate Western culture
is and how Islamic culture can be a suitable replacement.
The books indirectly suggest that the only way of thinking and only religion is Islam;
that the only Islam is Shiite and that the only Shiite is one who believes in the Absolute
Providence of Jurists. Hence the books can be considered ideological textbooks. To sum up,
the reason for Islamic Republic to still seek for creating Islamic humanities, 35 years after
the Islamic revolution, is that the regime feels a legitimacy crisis. As was seen in the Green
Movement in 2009, protesters not only did ask for the vote but also by their slogans they
indicated that they were against the regime itself.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is an honor for me to express my warm gratitude to Professor Graham Law and
Professor Keiko Sakurai, whose guidance, encouragement and support enabled me to
develop my ideas.
Also I am very grateful to Professor Yuko Tarumi, who kindly agreed to act as my
examiner.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my spouse, Mehran, who has been a great
source of endless motivation during the challenges of graduate school and life.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 5
This thesis is dedicated to my beloved parents
for their immense help and support
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 6
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... 4 LISTS OF TABLES & FIGURES ........................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 8 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................ 9 IDEOLOGY ....................................................................................................................................................................... 13 IRANIAN REVOLUTION ................................................................................................................................................. 15
CHAPTER 3. IRANIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM ........................................................ 17 EDUCATION IN PRE-‐REVOLUTIONARY IRAN ............................................................................................................ 17 EDUCATION IN POST-‐REVOLUTIONARY IRAN ......................................................................................................... 18
CHAPTER 4. BASIC POLICIES OF THE IRANIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM ...... 25 EDUCATIONAL PATTERN ............................................................................................................................................. 25 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TEXTBOOKS ......................................................................................................... 26
CHAPTER 5. MATERIALS AND METHODS .................................................................. 31 CHAPTER 6. ANALYZING THE OLD TEXTBOOKS .................................................... 34 THE WEST ...................................................................................................................................................................... 34 ISLAM .............................................................................................................................................................................. 38
CHAPTER 7. ANALYSIS OF THE NEW ISLAMIC TEXTBOOKS .............................. 40 GENERAL APPEARANCES ............................................................................................................................................. 40 PICTURES ........................................................................................................................................................................ 42 AUTHORS OF THE BOOKS ............................................................................................................................................. 45 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................................. 48 GENERAL VIEW .............................................................................................................................................................. 48 SOCIOLOGY 1 ................................................................................................................................................................. 51 SOCIOLOGY 2 ................................................................................................................................................................. 52 SOCIAL SCIENCE (SOCIOLOGY OF THE WORLD SYSTEM) ...................................................................................... 55 DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................................................... 59
CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................... 61
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 63 APPENDIX 1. TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE OLD TEXTBOOKS .......................... 71 APPENDIX 2. TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOKS ......................... 76 APPENDIX 3. SUBTOPICS OF SOCIOLOGY 1 (2013) ................................................... 82
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 7
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Views on the West in the Old Textbooks (scaled) ...................................................... 35 Table 2 Views on the West in the Old Textbooks (percentages) ............................................. 36 Table 3 Views toward Specific Western Countries/Regions in the Old Textbooks ................. 36 Table 4 Aggregate Views toward Western Countries/Regions in the Old Textbooks ............. 37 Table 5 Example Sentences for Each Scale Point in the Old Textbooks ................................. 37 Table 6 Number of Pages and Percentage Reduction of Pages in the New Textbooks ............ 40 Table 7 Ratios of Pictures in the New Textbooks .................................................................... 41 Table 8 Pages with Written Content in the New Textbooks .................................................... 41 Table 9 Some Examples of Irrelevant Pictures in the New Textbooks .................................... 44 Table 10 Examples of Relevant Pictures in the New Textbooks .............................................. 44 Table 11 Quantity of Pictures related to Islam in the New Textbooks ..................................... 45 Table 12 Authors of Sociology 1 .............................................................................................. 46 Table 13 Views of the West in the New Textbooks (scaled) ................................................... 49 Table 14 Example Sentences for Each Scale Point in the New Textbooks .............................. 50 Table 15 Views on the West in the New Textbooks (percentages) .......................................... 50
LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Zones of Socialization in Contemporary Classrooms ................................................ 10 Figure 2 Reduction of the Quantity of Pages with Written Content ......................................... 41
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 8
Chapter 1. Introduction
Although the curriculum generally “reflects both the distribution of power and the
principles of social control” (Bernstein, 1971, p. 156), in the Islamic Republic of Iran
overwhelming ideological concepts are inculcated in the curriculum. In Iran, not only the
religious textbooks contain Islamic concepts, but also there are lots of ideological and
Islamic notions in other textbooks such as those dedicated to literature, history, sociology,
etc. In other words, ideological views are interwoven with the whole curriculum.
Despite the fact that the new government after the Islamic revolution in 1979 had
revised all the textbooks in order to Islamize the educational system, again in 2009, the
Council for Humanities Development and Promotion was established in order to create
Islamic humanities. In fact, the regime decided to re-Islamize the Islamic textbooks. As one
of the first steps in this project, sociology textbooks of the high school were totally changed
in 2010. The goal of this thesis is to figure out how and why the textbooks have been
changed.
In the subsequent chapters, first I explain my understanding of ideology and
curriculum in general and discuss the impact of schooling in the socialization of the society
members. Then in Chapters 3 and 4, I describe educational policies in both pre- and post-
revolutionary Iran, in order to establish my research territory; in addition, I include some
cases of related research projects about education and curriculum in contemporary Iran.
Chapter 5 mainly deals with my methodology and the two following chapters consist of my
analysis on both the old and new versions of the textbooks. Finally, in Chapter 8, I
concentrate on putting forward my conclusions.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 9
Chapter 2. Literature Review
Socialization and Schooling
Nowadays an education system does not merely teach students knowledge and
prepare them for their own role and job in the society, rather schooling has a more important
function: socialization. An educational system is one of the most powerful agents to
socialize children. Socialization describes “the process by which people learn to adopt the
norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors accepted and practiced by the ongoing system”
(Sigel, 1970, p. xii). In other words, socialization is “the efforts of the carriers of a society’s
dominant ways of life to shape the values and conduct of others who are less integrated into
those ways of life” (Brint, 2006, p.132)_. Therefore, schools play a significant role in the
socialization of students. Every single activity in the school, such as reading textbooks,
taking tests, group activities in the classroom or even playing in the yard can considered as a
part of socialization and can inculcate certain values and ideologies. Although different
schools have different environments and do different extra curricular activities in diverse
ways, which teach students particular norms according to status of the school, in centralized
systems at least one specific aspect of all schools is alike: the textbooks. The ruling class can
take advantage of the uniform textbooks to establish appropriate norm and values into
students’ personality and make “an internalized sense of right action” (Ibid).
Figure 1, shows how the classroom can socialize the students and depicts different
layers, which can affect them. The outer ring shows the implicit training of norms and
values through the curriculum and teachers. This thesis will deal with this outer ring to
figure out the relationship between ideology and textbooks in contemporary Iran.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 10
Figure 1 Zones of Socialization in Contemporary Classrooms (Brint, 2006, p.145)
Thus, schooling is not a neutral expedience. It is filled by ideological and political
concepts. It can produce and legitimize specific structures, ideologies and other values.
Schooling by day-to-day practice can assist the ruling class to organize and control the
society. Cultural life can be dominated by a schooling system. In fact, “the linkage between
knowledge and power” (Apple, 2004, p.1) can provide a justification of the political and
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 11
socio-economical structure of the society. By using hidden messages and selective
knowledge in the curriculum, which is taught in educational institutions, those in power can
build ideological orientations. Schools choose partial or manipulated knowledge, which is
appropriate for their specific goals and legitimate it for students as “unquestioned truth”.
Apple suggests that schools “do not only process people; they process knowledge as well”
(Ibid, p. 12). In other words, the education system can work as a larger institution for
ideologies, beliefs, norms, values and so forth. David Hogan suggests, “it is difficult to
separate education issues from larger political issues” (cited in Apple & Weis, 1983, p. 4).
He goes on to suggest that these issues have fallen into four categories: structural politics,
human capital politics, cultural capital politics and displacement politics (ibid). In order to
understand these aspects, schools should be seen as more social and cultural institutions.
By speaking and emphasizing the role of school in the socialization of students and
the internalization of norms and ideologies, one may not underestimate the role of the
family, media, etc. Surely schooling and textbooks are not the absolute means to shape
students’ minds. Students are “real people with real and complex histories” which affect
their perception of textbooks (Ibid, p. 23). Students do not live in a vacuum. Definitely the
family has a significant impact. Family socioeconomic status (SES), the parents’ education,
income, occupation, social class, etc. designate which school the children will attend and
intensity of ideology in extra curricular activities differ among different schools.
Furthermore, even though textbooks are the same all over the country (in case of Iran for
instance) and hence the same ideologies are taught through the same textbooks, the
important point is students’ and teachers’ attitudes may differ, based on the socio-economic
structure of the sub-societies. Ideology will internalize better in students within whose
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 12
families those ideologies are repeated. Nafisi (1992) correctly asserts textbooks have
dissimilar impacts on different students. He points out that “children from more
traditional/religious families respond more to political socialization in schools than students
from secular/Westernized families” (p. 114).
In addition, mass media is influential as well. Media has a huge influence on society
in shaping public opinion. But without the free flow of information, media becomes an
instrument to help the ruling power to control people’s minds. In Iran for instance, there is
no cable TV and the head of broadcasting TV is chosen by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, so the TV programs are totally controlled by the regime. Furthermore, having
the satellite dish is forbidden and also the government uses radio jamming against those who
use satellite to make it impossible for them to watch the programs. Nevertheless, in practice
the percentage of people who use satellite dishes is increasing. The Minister of Culture and
Islamic Guidance, asserts that 71% of Tehran (the capital of Iran) actually watch foreign
channels, using satellite dishes. In addition, specific websites like Facebook, YouTube,
BBC, etc. are inaccessible because of the internet censorship, the newspapers which criticize
the policies of the regime are banned and so on. In this way it is easy to make mass media
and educational system consistent, so that they can socialize students more easily.
In sum, schools can be used as ideological engines to teach students selective and
manipulated knowledge. Norms, values and dispositions, which are taught in schools, can
simply create commonsense. Generally speaking, reproducing cultural structures and
ideologies can be considered as one of the functions of the educational system. For deeper
understanding of what the relationship between schooling and ideology is, it is useful to
have a concrete conception of ideology.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 13
Ideology
Antoine Destutt de Tracy, a French enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher, in
1795 coined the term ideology. He “began to formulate an approach to the rational study of
ideas that he called ideology (from idea/ology)” (MacKenzie, 1994, p.3). Tracy believed
ideology was the science of ideas, which can modify and explain the public mind.
According to the Dictionary of Political Thought (Scruton, 2007), over time the term
ideology has developed in many directions and now has two partly conflicting meanings:
1. Ideology is any systematic and all-embracing political doctrine, which claims to
give a complete and universally applicable theory of man and society, and to
derive therefrom a program of political action.
2. In Marxist and Marxian theories “ideology” denotes any set of ideas and values
which has the social function of consolidating a particular economic order, and
which is explained by that fact alone, and not by its inherent truth or
reasonableness. (p. 332)
In the first definition, ideology aims to include everything that is related to political
conditions and to create ideas and doctrine whenever it would be effective. The second
definition of ideology has a negative viewpoint. It explains ideology as an apparatus for the
ruling class to persuade subalterns to accept their narration of reality and “render their
subordination natural”. Hence, ideology has three primary functions: “to legitimate, to
mystify, and to console” (Scruton, 2007, p. 332). In other words, ideology in both senses is a
set of ideas which can be organized for explaining the position of the specific class and
orientation of the society or merely be “various false conceptions of nature, of man’s own
being, of spirits, magic forces, etc.” to naturalized current conditions (Williams, 1976,
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 14
p.156). Generally speaking, ideology simply means a set of political ideas or, in negative
terms, “a false kind of thinking”. (Adams, 1993)
Politics is about how society should be ruled and it attempts to reform the conflicting
views among people to obtain ideas about how the society ought to be. Conflicting views are
born because people in the society have different interests and different values. The
systematic beliefs which made use of in running the society in the best way constitute
ideology. Rather like religions, ideologies define human nature in a comprehensive way.
And according to that, ideologies explain the better world for the human beings. Hence, if a
certain ideology becomes dominant in a particular society, it becomes the Weltanschauung
(world view) of members of that society.
Ideology is also related to values. Ideology suggests the perspective of the good
society. All ideologies have an image of an ideal society. And it is not only ideal for the
people of that state, but also useful for human beings in general. In other words, each
ideology offers a way of life, which is suitable for all mankind and only if people have
certain ideas and have a specific lifestyle, can “their true potential flourish” (ibid).
As a result, if we have a specific ideal way for life and a perfect definition for good
society, we can evaluate our society. If the current situation in our present state is not like
that or not going forward to reach that ideal way, the political system might be changed or a
revolution may occur. Moaddel (1993) suggests that ‘Ideology is therefore conceptualized as
a discourse, consisting of a set of general principles and concepts, symbols and rituals, that
human actors use in addressing the problems they face in a particular historical episode” (p.
16). Hence ideology can lead the members of a society to perform a political action.
Ideologies give people certain values and goals and a reason for achieving those goals.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 15
Ideological thinking already exists with the ancient Greeks, but talking about the
current world, it is related to doctrines, which have connected with modern political
movements. There are lots of ideologies in today’s word, such as liberalism, capitalism,
nationalism, socialism and so on. But according to Adams (1993), “Religious
fundamentalism deals with ideas of far greater antiquity than any other ideologies” (p. 11).
As a specific case, now we can investigate the role of ideology in the Iranian revolution.
Iranian Revolution
Lots of eminent scholars, including Moore, Wolf, Tilly and Skocpol analyze the
features of Iran’s revolution in 1979. They attempt to fit Iran’s revolution into existing
revolution theory such as “individualistic theories”, “organizational theories” or “class
theories”. Mansoor Moaddel (1993), Iranian Professor of sociology in Michigan University,
in his book Class, Politics, and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution, explains the nature of the
Iranian revolution as “anomaly” to many existing revolution theories. The Iranian revolution
happened in the situation where there was no political or economical crisis; participants in
the revolution were not from the class having the resource to paralyze the state, and no
breakdown of the state occurred. Moaddel argues that all of those scholars ignored the
significant role of ideology in Iran’s revolution. He suggests that ideology is not just one of
the factors that cause revolution: “Ideology is the constitutive feature of revolution” (p. 2).
After revolution in 1979, the monarchy of the Shah in Iran was replaced with
a theocracy based on Shiite beliefs. Although the origin of this new doctrine derives from
Shia Islam, it is important to notice that revolutionary Islamic discourse was not a
preexisting ideology in Islam; most of its ideas were invented by Ayatollah Khomeini, the
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 16
leader of the revolution. And its acceptance was due to the socioeconomic issues in 1960s
and 1970s.
Khomeini’s main political goal was “to identify Islam with the ulama”. Ulama are
the religious scholars whom have a social prestige and political power in current Iran.
Moaddel (1993) points out that Khomeini was attempting first to demonstrate the stability of
his idea with Shiite political theory and second to determine a true Muslim as anyone who
believes in the power of the ulama (p. 146). Khomeini argued “the ulamas’ governance
would be an institution for ensuring the rigorous application of Shari’a [religion] to Muslim
society” (ibid).
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 17
Chapter 3. Iranian Educational System
Education in Pre-Revolutionary Iran
Before the creation of the modern schooling system in Iran, there were mainly two
types of traditional schools: Maktab, in which schoolchildren learn some knowledge at the
basic level such as literacy and mathematics as well as performing religious activities like
recitation of the Quran in Arabic; and Madrasa, which were designed for further Islamic
education in order to instruct Shiite scholars (Sakurai, 2013). During the nineteenth century,
Iranian reformists who found out the influence of modern education in techno-economic
development of the country, introduced what can be called modern education to the society.
The first modern school in Iran was founded in 1834. Ever since the establishment of the
modern schools, Muslim clerics (Ulama) were “suspicious towards modern secular
education, fearing that it would undermine traditional religious values … [they] perceived
the new school as part of the overall project of the “Westernization” of Iranian society”,
(Paivandi, 2013, p. 83). Although the modern school system tried not to have a direct
struggle with religious institutions and included a compulsory religious course, the conflict
remained between religious authorities and the reformists till the Constitutional Revolution
(1905~7). This revolution led to the foundation of the legal structure of modern education,
which in spite of the secular essence of its curriculum had “a peaceful coexistence” with
religious knowledge. (Ibid)
As time goes on, several viewpoints and criticisms emerged about modern schooling.
Three most important and influential intellectuals of the 1960s who generated a new mode
of discourse in order to reconcile modern education with Islamic values were Jalal Al-e
Ahmad (1923-69), Ali Shariati (1933-77) and Morteza Motahari (1920-79). They also had a
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 18
great impact on creating revolutionary ideologies (Dabashi, 2005).
By writing the book entitled Westoxification [Gharbzadegi], Jalal Al-e Ahmad
criticized the way that the West has influenced Iranian national identity. “By this term
[Westoxification] he meant the excessive and rather awkward preoccupation of certain
influential segments of Iranian society with manners and matters Western in origin”
(Dabashi, 2005, p. 74). In other words, Westoxification is “the hegemony of an alien culture
which increasingly dominated the intellectual, social, political and economic life of the
Iranian society” (Boroujerdi, 2005, p. 24). Paivandi (2013), explains that in his book, Al-e
Ahmad considered universities as “Westernized institutions” (p. 85). By such interpretation
of the impact of the West on Iran’s society, Al-e Ahmad not only embedded a new word in
the political language of Iranians, but also strengthened the idea that the West is responsible
for all of the country’s adversity. Another Iranian intellectual who criticized modern
education was Ali Shariati. He presumed that the spiritual aspects of education have
disappeared in modern schooling and the solution is reverting to traditional Islamic
schooling. In addition, Morteza Motahari, a Shiite cleric, believed that it is “necessary to
confront the secular ideas”, which were deployed in Iran, mainly in universities (Dabashi,
2005, p. 151).
These debates about education clearly indicate why the revolutionaries, especially
the leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, were seeking to metamorphose educational system and
Islamize it after the revolution.
Education in Post-Revolutionary Iran
The first Iranian cleric Prime Minister, Mohammad-Javad Bahonar (1985) suggests
that Iran’s revolution is not merely a change in political system; it “is an ideological
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 19
revolution, a revolution of values, norms, social affiliations, social rights and duties, ideals,
points of view, outlooks, tendencies, etc. … The whole culture pattern of the nation has
changed”. In fact Iranian society attempted to “construct a more satisfying culture”
(Wallace, 1956, p. 265).
In the period immediately after the revolution (1980-1987) a series of incidents
occurred, which were named the “Cultural Revolution”. The main goal of the Cultural
Revolution was to purge academia of non-Islamic tendencies and to make it Islamic. During
the Cultural Revolution, universities were closed for three years (1980-1983) by the Cultural
Revolutionary Headquarters (later Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution) and after re-
opening, many books were banned and many students and university lecturers1 who did not
believe in either Islam or the Islamic republic were expelled. Ayatollah Khomeini, former
supreme leader of Iran and the leader of the revolution, pointed out in his speech, “We are
not afraid of economic sanctions or military intervention [which were feared at that time
because of the hostage crisis]. What we are afraid of is Western universities and the training
of our youth in the interests of the West or East” (Sahimi, 2009). Ayatollah Khomeini
emphasized that change is necessary in the educational system, and stressed “without
educational reform, there is no hope that an Islamic Republic shall ever take shape in this
country” (cited in Menashri, 1992, p. 309). In addition “on April 26, 1980, Khomeini
delivered a speech … [which] warned that the Islamic Revolution could not reach its ideal
without purifying the anti-Islamic elements from the campuses and making universities
independent from the foreign influence” (cited in Sakurai, 2004, p. 389). For reaching this
goal, not only textbooks are being revised regularly, but teachers are also trained in “state-
1 700 faculty members, mainly social scientists, were dismissed (Mahdi, 2010).
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 20
sponsored” centers (Mehran,2 2007b, p. 100). Since the teacher’s behavior is also crucial in
shaping the student’s mind, Mehran (2007a), noted that “teachers are asked to act as models
of perfection and humanity” (p. 57). Moreover, ever since the Cultural Revolution, the
selection mechanism for recruitment of university lecturers has changed. There are now two
phases of selection, one is about scientific proficiency and the other is about religious and
political views. As Godazgar (2008), points out the criteria of the selection for schools has
an “even higher standard than that of universities, in terms of ideology” (p. 105).
Re-Islamizing the textbooks. The Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution is still
working to ensure that the culture and education system is purely Islamic. Again in 2009, the
Council announced the establishment of the Council for Humanities Development and
Promotion to enhance humanities “based on theoretical fundamentals of the Islamic
Republic of Iran and Islamic anthropology” (Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, 2009).
In other words, the regime has decided to re-Islamize the Islamic textbooks.
At this time, the question, which arises is why did Iran’s government decide to re-
Islamize the textbooks insistently, more than three decades after the revolution? One of the
possible responses to this question might be that to be Islamic or not, is not the main issue.
The ruling power in Iran is trying to legitimize and justify the regime to the young
generation, who unlike their parents and the earlier generations, have access to the Internet
and they are using social media so that they can gain much more information than their
parents could. Therefore, by having access to this information, they may question the
regime. Furthermore, during the political movement which arose after Iran’s presidential
2 Golnar Mehran is a professor at Al-Zahra University in Iran, who has written numerous articles about Iran’s educational system.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 21
election in June 2009, known as the Green Movement, many politicians and protesters had
been arrested. Later, some of them made confessions in a public court,3 admitting their
mistakes. One of the confessors was Saeed Hajarian, who is mainly known as the reformist’s
ideologue and theoretician. On 25 August 2009, Hajarian had stated in the court that he is
regretful for his inaccurate analysis. The reformists’ mastermind (Fars News, 2009),
Hajarian expressed that the original hotbed of his analysis must be found in the universities
in which the Western humanities and ideologies are taught without being criticized. Iranian
intellectuals and elites must be aware of applying ideas of Weber, Habermas, etc. into
contemporary Iran, since it may challenge Iran’s official ideology and threaten the national
security. He claimed that the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution is also responsible for
the post-election aftermath. It should be noted that blaming universities for the country’s
crises is not an absolutely new interpretation. 29 years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini also
suggested this idea and explained, “all the miseries of society and all of our backwardness
were caused by the universities and their graduates” (cited in Menashri, 1992, p. 308).
Five days after Hajarian’s confession, on 30 August, the Supreme leader of Iran,
Ayatollah Khamenei, addressed university professors and warned them about the Western
Humanities. Declaring that in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Islamic humanities should be
taught in the educational system. After that speech, the government decided to Islamize the
humanities which are taught in schools and universities. And this project has been in process
since then. Again on July 2nd 2014 in a meeting with the university professors, Ayatollah
Khamenei stated:
We really need to make a fundamental change to humanities … the issue is that the
basis of Western humanities is non-divine, materialistic and non-monotheistic. This
3 Iran’s oppositions believe that the court was a show trial and confessions were forced confessions.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 22
is not compatible with Islamic principles, nor is it compatible with religious
principles.
So the initial interpretation of recreating Islamic humanities could be to legitimize
the government and make common sense that this is the only best way of governing the
country. According to Bourdieu and Passeron (1977), “The educational system succeeded so
perfectly in fulfilling its ideological function of legitimating the established order” (p.199).
By using textbooks, the ruling power in Iran can shape students’ mind and teach them their
political agenda.
Western humanities. To reach the goal of Islamizing the humanities, the enactment
of a “National Master Plan for Science and Education” was approved by the Supreme
Council of Cultural Revolution in 2011. An article of the Master Plan clearly shows what
the main goal is: “Creation of fundamental scientific change, especially with regard to the
reevaluation and designing of humanities, within the framework of the Islamic worldview”
(National Master Plan for Science and Education, Part one). But what exactly are the
Western humanities?
Gholam Ali Hadad Adel, head of the Council for Humanities Development and
Promotion, explains that there are no advantages in Western humanities. Western humanities
consist of Darwinian evolutionary theory, Freudian ideas in psychology, Durkheim’s points
of view in social science and Marx’s theories in economy. These westernized sciences are
not related to Iran’s own civilization (Mehrnews, 2012). And as defined in the Social
Science textbooks, Western humanities, which are established on post-Renaissance
ontological and anthropological knowledge and methods, explain human life regardless of
its spiritual and metaphysical aspects and organize it in a temporal and secular way. (2013,
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 23
p. 69). Given this perception about what the so-called Western humanities are, Islamic
humanities need to be defined as well.
Ever since the introduction of Islamic humanities, many Iranian scholars have been
trying to find a definition for what they are. Dabbagh (2010), for instance, is an Iranian
intellectual who explains the new expression, Islamic humanities, in a sophisticated way. In
his view, talking about the Islamizing of humanities may refer to three different aspects:
subject, methodology and goals. If being Islamic refers to the subject, for instance, Islamic
sociology may explain social relations among Muslim communities, relations between
people and social institutions in Muslim countries, and so on. If it is about methodology, we
should say methods, which are mainly applying certain procedures in order to gain data and
then analyze them, are not religious or non-religious. Finally, goals assign more to scientists
rather than science itself, which means that, for example, by creating Islamic sociology the
aim is to produce Muslim sociologists. Dabbagh also points out that a new scientific
discipline needs a prototype that represents its general direction like Newton’s laws of
motion, which are principles of classical mechanics. And there is no prototype or origin for
Islamic humanities. The better understanding of Islamic humanities can be obtained after the
Islamized books have been profoundly analyzed.
In 2010, the head of the Organization for Educational Research and Planning stated
that the sociology textbooks for high school had been changed for the new the academic
year (Tabnak, 2010). The books had been totally changed due to the project of creating
Islamic humanities. There are not many analyses of these new textbooks, since the books are
quite new. In a seminar for reviewing Sociology 1 in 2011, Alireza Sharifi, a member of
Educational Studies Institute, after criticizing the philosophical view of the book had pointed
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 24
out that the book “decapitates” the West. Moreover, Alireza Hashemi (2014), general
secretory of the Iranian Teachers Organizations, describes the new Social Science textbook
as a political bulletin rather than a textbook. He continues to say that the book contains a
barrage of political insults to the West. In order to examine such claims and also deepen the
understanding of the books, analyzing current social science textbooks and comparing them
with previous ones, would be helpful. But first, to have a profound understanding of the
textbooks, basic general information about Iran’s current educational system is needed.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 25
Chapter 4. Basic Policies of the Iranian Educational System
Educational Pattern
Education in Iran has a 12-year centralized government-based system which follows
a 6-3-3 pattern; six years of primary school, three years of secondary school and three years
of high school. Education is compulsory up to grade 9 and according to Iran’s constitution
Article 30, the government has to provide free 12-year education for all of the citizens.
However, in practice there are some difficulties for certain society members to access the
education system, such as child laborers or children in some rural areas. According to 2014
statistics (Tasnim, 2014), there are 3,500,000 completely illiterate people in Iran which
means 5% of the whole population, while 42% are educated maximally up to the end of 9th
grade.
At the high school level, students ought to select one of the two main courses based
on their abilities and interests, either Academic or Technical and Vocational Education.
Students who are choose Academic education, according to their capabilities, grades and
desires, have to choose between three different subjects which are Mathematics and Physics,
Natural Sciences and Humanities. This thesis will analyze Sociology textbooks of grade 10,
11 and 12 of the Humanities elective. In 2011, 33.4% of the 607,000 students who enrolled
in academic high schools had chosen Humanities (Hamshahri Online).
After finishing 12 years of schooling, students must take part in a very competitive
nationwide university entrance exam named Konkoor4 in order to gain entrance to higher
education. Konkoor, is 4-hour multiple-choice exam which is created and edited by
schoolteachers and university professors. In order to succeed in a mainly memory-based
4 Concours, the French word for Competition.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 26
exam like Konkoor, students need to read high school textbooks carefully many times so
that they can memorize it properly. As a matter of fact, high school textbooks are read
repeatedly not only during the school year but also for passing Konkoor. As a result, the
content of the textbooks becomes extremely important.
General Characteristics of Textbooks
Regardless of their being public or private schools, the same textbooks are taught all
over the country. The Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution decides general policies of
the textbooks and the Organization of Educational Research and Planning, one of the
bureaus of Ministry of Education, is responsible for compiling the textbooks. Since
members of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution are selected by the Supreme
Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, it can be said that the context and content of the
textbooks are indirectly supervised by the Supreme Leader. Clearly, the contents of the
textbooks differ according to its subject, but all of them share some specific features.
As noted in an SAIC research report (2007) about Iranian textbooks, “the books
clearly aim to indoctrinate students in the logic of the dominant clerics of the ruling Shiite
sect” (p. 2). It does not matter what subject the book has. In every textbook some Islamic
concepts can be found. For instance, this is written in the Grade 3 Mathematics textbook (p.
87): “Thirty-five people take part in the group prayer at the mosque in a small village and
seven people stand in each row. How many rows do all the participants form?” (Paivandi,5
2008). Even mathematics textbooks are not devoid of ideological concepts. Also in Social
Teaching textbook of fifth grade, in a lesson about duties of the Islamic state, it is stated that
5 Saeed Paivandi is a professor of sociology at the Paris-8 University, who has written some articles about the destiny of Islamic humanities in Iran.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 27
“Guarding of Islam and administration of the Islamic rules are the most important
responsibility of the Islamic Republic government” (p. 148).
Moreover, in theology textbooks, Arabic textbooks and Persian literature there are
lots of Islamic concepts, figures, verses from the Quran, etc. For instance, according to
Paivandi, statistical analysis of 412 lessons of Persian literature textbooks (grade 1~11)
shows that religion and Islamic topics appear in 38% of the lessons. Moreover, “the topics of
50 lessons (out of 412) on poetry, literary subjects, and classical Persian literature are about
God. An additional 65 lessons discuss the Prophet of Islam, Shi’a Imams and other historical
and contemporary Islamic personalities” (Ibid). By merely considering course subjects,
Amadio and Rivard (2003) showed that among 142 countries Iran is the fifth highest
country, in terms of its allocation of time to religious matters during the first six years of
education.
Another characteristic is that all of the textbooks have the picture of the Ayatollah
Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, on the opening page and quote his statements. In the
words of Mehran (2002), it “is an attempt to keep Ayatollah Khomeini alive for members of
the new generation” (p. 237). This can teach students that Ayatollah Khomeini’s ideals are
extremely important. Here is an example of the quotation of his words in a Social Science
textbook (2013):
You should not doubt that the Islamic revolution of Iran is different from all other
revolutions, both in genesis and the quality of the battle and in the motivation. And
no doubt that it was a divine gift from God.
As described in the National Curriculum of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the main
principle of educational policy is its being religious-based [Din Mehvari]. In the “Main
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 28
Goals of Curriculum” section, it is pointed that the second goal is having faith. And it
explains faith as believing in God, the holy prophet, Shia Imams and the Absolute
Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists [Velayat e Motlaghe ye Faghih] and belief in their
unique role in the salvation of humankind. The third goal is to gain knowledge, with one of
the functions of having knowledge described as being familiar with features of religious
democracy and understanding Islamic Iran’s position in the world and its global duty.
Some previous studies have criticized these goals and principles. Paivandi (2008),
by analyzing the 1~11 grade textbooks6 of 2006-7 academic year, concludes that “the
original sin of the textbooks … is related to ideological-political discourse … the
philosophical structure of the textbooks is in clear contradiction to critical thinking and
criticizing the world, which is the most important achievement of modernity”. According to
Mehran (2007), by the educational system, the ruling class in Iran is trying to create a “sense
of loyalty” to the Islamic Republic in students’ minds, to make “pious Muslims” and teach
them that “religious fidelity and the politics of supporting the regime become inseparable”
(p.68). She continues to say the goal of such a highly ideological educational system, is
“Islamizing and politicizing” Iranian youths by using the means of the curriculum, and
strengthening the regime. Moreover, Mehran (1990), by studying Iran’s schooling principles
and doctrine, further concludes that “character formation, political socialization and
ideological education” (p. 63) are the primary objectives of education in Iran. Mehran also
indicates that “It [Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran] is directed at creating the New
Islamic Person who is morally pure, socially committed, politically involved, and most
importantly, loyal to the government” (Ibid, p. 57). In addition, in another article, Mehran
(1989) analyzed social science textbooks of elementary and secondary schools of 1987-8
6 Specialized high school textbooks and theology textbooks for minorities were not examined.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 29
academic years as “one of the key communicators of acceptable values” in a society. She
depicted the explanation of “new Islamic person”, politics, culture and “role models” in the
textbooks and concluded that education in Iran is “avowedly political”. Also according to
Haghayeghi (1993), after the revolution, “humanities and social sciences become the main
‘curricular target’ for drastic textbook revisions” (p. 42). As he points out, the new
government had tried to change the orientation of the textbooks in two dimensions. Firstly,
to emphasize on post-Islamic Iran rather than pre-Islamic era. Secondly, to substitute
Western norms with Islamic values.
Since my conducted analysis depicts textbooks attitudes toward the West, it is
helpful to know how the West is illustrated in other textbooks. In her article Socialization of
Schoolchildren in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mehran (1989) describes the attitudes
towards the West in primary and secondary school social studies textbooks. Her study shows
that the education system in Iran is trying to create a “correct” viewpoint about the West (p.
43). She explains the image of the West in the Iranian curriculum as follows:
The World is divided into ‘morally superior’ Muslims and ‘corrupt’ Westerners. It
seems that the Iranian identity continuously needs a counter-hero in order to be able
to define itself … The other in Iranian textbooks is still predominantly the West, with
whom ‘we’ continue to have a love-hate relationship. (2002, pp. 248-9)
It is important to mention, although textbooks have a significant impact on students’
values and behaviors, extra curricular activities are very important in students’ daily life at
schools as well. In all of the schools, there is an institution named Educational Affairs
[Omoor e Tarbiati], which has the duty of illustrating Islamic and revolutionary values in
the school environment. It organizes some events like holding group prayer, celebrating
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 30
religious special days and decorating school corridors with Islamic figures. In some schools,
Educational Affairs supervise students for some religious duties such as saying prayers,
fasting during the month of Ramadan, having a proper form of veil for girls and so on.
Mohammadi points out that more than 160 ceremonies are held in school annually and the
majority of them are religious and political (cited in Paivandi, 2010).
After all, it should be mentioned although Iran macro policies are leading
educational institutions in general -- and humanities in particular -- to be more and more
Islamic; there are some politicians who are not adherents of this idea. President Rouhani
(TasnimNews, 2014, May) is one of those opponents. He asserts that principles of sciences
have nothing to do with Islam, Christianity or Judaism; principles of science are global.
Rouhani (TasnimNews, 2014, October) points out that Islamizing of humanities never
means leaving aside parts of the knowledge, which relate to the humanities. He emphasizes:
Every sociopolitical system may have ideological and political attention on
education, but in our country the ideological view toward education is
very prominent. Some statesmen want to compensate shortcomings
and inefficiencies in other fields by changing the students’ mentality in schools.
They think the first role of the educational system is to be in charge for the benefit of
the political system. But it is not true. If the government and political system are
weak, they cannot change people's perception through education. And we cannot do
this as in past years. (AftabNews, 2013)
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 31
Chapter 5. Materials and Methods
As mentioned in the earlier chapters, my first research goal is to investigate how the
Iranian high school sociology textbooks have been Islamized. Thus, I need to analyze both
versions of the books to figure out what changes have been carried out in order to create
Islamic – or more Islamic – textbooks. This chapter deals with detailed information about
the methods employed.
To have more reliable results, both qualitative and quantitative research methods are
used in this dissertation. Quantitative method deals with the number of pages and pictures to
illustrate the apparent characteristics of the books and analyze the increase, decrease, etc. in
the quantity of material in the books. In order to inspect whether the written content of the
two versions of the books are the same or not, I decide to measure if all the pictures are
collected together, how many pages they will occupy. Hence, I divide every single page into
four sections by drawing a vertical and horizontal line in the middle of it (like a big plus sign
in each page) and then calculate the portion7 of the pictures. By subtracting the pictures
pages from the total pages, the written content of each book is calculated.
The more penetrative approach conducted is a qualitative one, content analysis.
Although Max Weber is the first scholar who suggested content analysis in 1910, the term
‘qualitative content analysis’ was firstly used by Kracauer in 1952 and thirty-one years later
in 1983, the first qualitative content analysis textbook method was published by Philipp
Mayring (Kuchartz, 2014). Kracauer defines this qualitative method as “a necessary
extension of and supplement to mainstream content analysis” (Ibid, p. 32). Hence a
7 On each page there can be 0, !
!, !!, !! or a whole page (1) with pictures.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 32
researcher may begin with quantitative method and go on to use qualitative analysis to
improve the work and have a better understanding of content of the media.
Qualitative Content analysis is “a broad amalgamation of approaches” (Deveruex,
2003), and as Mayring (2000) defines, it is “an approach of empirical, methodological
controlled analysis of texts within their context of communication, following content
analytical rules and step by step models, without rash quantification”. There is a variety of
definitions of qualitative content analysis8 and the one mainly used in this thesis is Patton’s
(2002), who defines it as: “any qualitative data reduction and sense-making effort that takes
a volume of qualitative material and attempts to identify core consistencies and meaning”
(as cited in Zhang & Wildemuth, 2005). By using qualitative content analysis, without being
overwhelmed by numbers and counting, we can interpret the data more deeply. Hence, I
analyzed the books generally using qualitative content analysis. Reading each book many
times to understand the latent message of them, enables me to go through the chain of the
concepts that implies a certain fact. With the addition of the interpretation of the text, there
are lots of examples from the original textbooks in order to strengthen my explanations.
Besides, I conduct summative content analysis to examine the books position on the
West. Summative content analysis “starts with identifying and quantifying certain words or
content in text with the purpose of understanding the contextual use of the words or content”
(Hsieh & Shannon, 2005. p. 1283). In this method a single word is being analyzed rather
than the whole text (Ibid, p. 1286). According to the research question and the content of the
textbooks, I conduct summative content analysis on “the West”. After counting the phrase
“the West” and its equivalents, I grade instances from 1 (very positive) to 5 (very negative)
and thus examine the books’ attitudes toward the West. This analysis may be considered 8 Lasswell (1948), Krippendorff (2004), Neal (2012), etc.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 33
subjective, and it seems that I would be better to have a group of people for coding
procedure in order to have more reliable results. However, according to the fact that this
research is conducted in Tokyo, Japan, sufficient Persian speakers cannot be found for the
coding process; and since such project cannot be done in Iran for political reasons, tagging is
conducted solitarily by the author. In order to reduce the subjectivity of the analysis, I have
present examples of the coding system, so that the readers can judge the tagging for
themselves.
As Lasswell (1946) points out, adequate content analysis should cover three
dimensions. Firstly it should depict the frequency of the selected term (or, in his own term,
“symbol”); then it should illustrate how the term appears in the analyzed material
(“favorably, neutrally or unfavorably” as he suggests) and finally the results should indicate
the intensity of the term. (p. 90). He explains intensity as “a matter of ‘prominence’ and
‘style’” and defines them as “availability to attention” and the “pattern of unit’s arranging”
(Ibid, p. 86-7). In this thesis the first two dimensions are fully covered for the term ‘West’
but the intensity factor such as position of the term in the page, etc. has not been considered.
The analyzed books are Sociology 1, Sociology 2 and Social Science (Sociology of
World System), published in 2013, which are taught in grades 10~12. The PDF versions of
the books are available in Persian on http://www.chap.sch.ir/ for further information. These
new books are compared with the previous versions of them, Sociology 1, Sociology 2 and
Social Science (Sociology of World System) published in 2003, 2007 and 2004 respectively.
Unfortunately, the old books are not available online and even finding the printed version of
them was not easy. The old books, which were found in bookstores in Tehran, were not
published in the same year but were all written by the same author.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 34
Chapter 6. Analyzing the Old Textbooks
In this chapter I analyze the previous set of sociology textbook. All three books were
written by Ahmad RajabZade, former sociology associated professor of Kharazmi
University (Tarbiat Moallem University). In addition to general appearances like more pages
and less pictures in comparison to the new books, the first remarkable feature of the books is
being a real sociology textbook. Unlike the new books, which are written with philosophical
and religious views, these books are written form a sociological approach. In the first two
books, concepts like identity, role, interests and inequalities are covered. The last book is
about sociology of world system, including definition of world system and political,
economical and cultural relations in different societies. Moreover, in the last chapter the
situation of Iran in the world system is discussed. Thus, as it is supposed, there are lots of
sociological concepts defined in the books; such as self, others, narrative, discrimination,
status, social mobility, social stratification, civil society, etc. Having a brief look at the
books’ tables of contents9 will show more examples of these concepts.
In this chapter mainly two key points are being analyzed; the views of the books
toward the West and toward Islam.
The West
In comparison to the new books, these books introduce the West in a more honest
and rational way. In Sociology 2, views toward West are divided into three categories (p
.48). The first one is that characterized by a fundamentally negative opinion about the West.
This kind of thinking emphasizes its own viewpoints and believes that it cannot be subject to
criticism. In contrast, there is an opposite view characterized by a totally positive view about
9 Appendix 1
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 35
the West. Believers of this view have a very negative opinion about being Iranian and think
the only requisite for development is to be totally like the West and mimic all of their
features even in clothing, like using fedora instead of traditional Iranian felt hats. Third are
the ones who do not have an absolute (positive or negative) opinion either about Iran or
about the West. By have a critical view, they not only emphasize positive dimensions of
Iranian identity and the West, but also commit themselves to adopt positive factors of the
West and change negative features of themselves (p. 49). In addition in a lesson titled “Why
do we change our identity?” after explaining concept of Westoxification,10 it is asked how
can Iranians have positive features of the West, without loosing their own identity
(Sociology 1, p. 110). This means that the author of the book does not want to repudiate all
of the Western features. He tries to say that the West also has some good points and wants
students to believe so. Moreover, when the book is describing how Japan developed during
the history, it suggests that Japan considers the West as a powerful, wealthy and capable
competitor (Ibid, 118). So the books have a much fairer view toward the West. In general,
in the books West is illustrated as below, where 5 stands for very negative and 1 for very
positive.
Sociology 1 Sociology 2 Social Science
(Sociology of World System) 3.08 2.94 3.41
Table 1 Views on the West in the Old Textbooks (scaled)
Table 1 shows the first two books are broadly neutral toward the West and the last
book describes the West in a more negative way. In Table 2, total average shows that
generally speaking the books are neutral about the West in most cases (more than 56%).
10 The Persian word is Gharbzadegi which is translated “West-struck” (Menashri, 1992, p. 320)
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 36
Books Scales
Sociology 1
Sociology 2
Social Science (Sociology of World System) Quantity Total
Average Very Negative 16.66% 5.55% 9.8% 8 9.88% Negative 8.34% 0 29.41% 16 19.75% Neutral 41.66% 77.78% 52.94% 46 56.79% Positive 33.34% 16.67% 7.85% 11 13.58% Very Positive 0 0 0 0 0
81 100% Table 2 Views on the West in the Old Textbooks (percentages)
One important difference between the two versions of the books is that in the new
books, the only other is “the West”, whereas in the previous books, which are analyzed in
this chapter, Japan, China, Russia, India, etc. are mentioned as others. In addition, rather
merely talking about a solid West, the books also mention specific segments of the West
such as the US, Europe, England, France, etc. And since these countries are in the category,
which is called “the West” in the current books, here I include the view of the books toward
them as well. Since there are mentions of Europe or the US in Sociology 1 and 2, I
dismissed them; thus Table 3 is the counts cases only in the Social Science (Sociology of
World System) book.
Others
Scales USA Europe Specific European Countries (England, France, etc.)
Very Negative 20% 8.82% 8.16% Negative 38% 31.37% 34.69% Neutral 37% 48.04% 42.86% Positive 5% 11.77% 14.29% Very Positive 0 0 0
Quantity 100 102 49 Table 3 Views towards Specific Western Countries/Regions in the Old Textbooks
If we add up them all, including West as well as the US, Europe, etc. we have Table
4.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 37
Books Scales
Sociology 1
Sociology 2
Social Science (Sociology of World System) Quantity Total
Average Very Negative 11.11% 3.70% 12.58% 41 11.81% Negative 11.11% 7.41% 33.78% 106 30.55% Neutral 33.33% 70.37% 44.37% 159 45.83% Positive 44.45% 18.52% 9.27% 41 11.81% Very Positive 0 0 0 0 0
347 100% Table 4 Aggregate Views toward Western Countries/Regions in the Old Textbooks
By considering all Western countries mentioned in the all three books and tagging
them from very negative to very positive according to how they appear in the text, Table 4
has been obtained. Table 4 illustrates that generally the West is not introduced in a positive
way; in most cases there is negative or neutral view toward it. Table 5 shows some examples
of each scale point.
Scale Example Reference
Very Negative
Their attitude toward the West prevents them to see bad things, which is done by them such as colonialism, war and enslaving races and ethnicities.
Sociology 2, p. 48
Negative One of the issues, which are pointing in analyzing Western democracies, is influence of capitalists on the statesmen even to the extent that they become figureheads.
Sociology 1, p. 79
Neutral
They go to these countries in order to learn technical knowledge and modern science and besides this, they become familiar with other dimensions of Western culture.
Social Science (Sociology of
World System), p. 113
Positive Japanese people consider the West as a capable, powerful and wealthy competitor.
Sociology 1, p. 118
Very Positive
Table 5 Example Sentences for Each Scale Point in the Old Textbooks
It is important to mention that in these books, the US is introduced as a country
which considers Islamism and the Islamic revolution a threat to its national interests; and
hence American statesmen confront Iran in a so many different ways such as supporting Iraq
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 38
during the war against Iran, blocking Iran’s bank accounts in the US, propagating an unreal
image of Islamic revolution in the mass media, etc. (Social Science, p. 145). In addition to a
fairly negative view toward the West and Europe, enmity of the US and opposition toward
it, which is repeated as a political slogan ever since the Islamic revolution, exists in these
textbooks as well.
Islam
Like other Iranian textbook, these sociology textbooks contain Islamic examples as
well, employing quotations from the Prophet Mohammad, etc. The key point is in these
books is religion (particularly Islam), which is introduced as one of the characteristics of
Iranians or mankind in general; illustrations of the concept are introduced in the books. For
instance, describing features of humankind, the book suggests some features are inherent
and people are born with them like gender, race, skin color, etc. and some are acquired by
living in a particular society such as being democratic, religious, etc. (Sociology 1, p. 47).
Another example is when the book talks about identity, where the mentioned features are:
being Iranian, a member of school sport team, Baloch,11 Christian or Muslim, etc. (Ibid, p.
102). In these cases religion or Islam do not have a positive or negative meaning; it is
merely a characteristic that one can have. In addition, in the lesson about narrative and
identity, there is an example of religious narrative about the future and redemption
(Sociology 2, p. 18). In Social Science (Sociology of World System), when the book is
explaining about cultural diffusion, it mentions Hajj,12 as an example (p. 99). Moreover, for
11 One of the Iranian ethnicities 12 Annual Islamic Pilgrimage
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 39
the author “religion” is not just Islam; talking about religious transnational organizations, the
book gives the example of the Catholic Church (p. 55).
Another characteristic of the previous version of the books is how they define the
Islamic revolution. Introducing pre-revolutionary Iran as a peripheral country, which was
dependent especially on the US, it is suggested that Iranians chose Islam in order to confront
their dependency. The book continues to explain since the key slogan of the revolution was
“Independence, Freedom, Islamic Republic”, the independence and development of Iran was
one of the main ideals of the revolution (Social Science, p. 131). Afterwards, the book
depicts how other countries such as Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, etc. were peripheral
countries and now are semi-peripheral or core countries (Ibid, p. 135); and then the book
concludes that Iran also can change its status in the world system. In the book, the religious
dimension of the Islamic revolution is introduced as a returning to spirituality and theology
in order to fill a fundamental vacuum in the world system (Ibid, p. 143). The book claims
Islam has a new message for Western people, who face a dead end in their life and seek for a
meaning to escape it (Ibid, p.146).
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 40
Chapter 7. Analysis of the New Islamic Textbooks
In this chapter by analyzing the current Sociology textbooks, I am going to ascertain
in which aspects the books are being Islamized. The analyzed books here are Sociology 1,
Sociology 2 and Social Science (Sociology of World System). The chapter starts with
general issues repeated in all of the books like pictures, authors, etc. and goes on to
concentrate on each book separately.
General Appearances
The most obvious characteristic of the new books in comparison to the previous
versions is the reduction in size of the books; not only the pages are reduced but also the
number of pictures is increased, which means the written contents of the books are reduced.
Having the same publisher13 and also the identical format of the pages (approximately16 ×
23 with 330 words per page), make the two versions perfectly comparable. Table 6
illustrates the percentage of the reduction in the books’ size.
Sociology 1 Sociology 2 Social Science
(Sociology of World System)
Current 110 90 136 Previous 120 132 153 Decrease 8.3% 31.8% 11.1%
Table 6 Number of Pages and Percentage Reduction of Pages in the New Textbooks
Although Table 6 shows a remarkable decrease, merely considering this table may
not give a proper perception of how the quantity of the books has been reduced. Table 7
displays the ratio of the pictures in each book and here there is a notable increase.
13 Iran Textbook Publishing Company (Ltd)
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 41
Sociology 1 Sociology 2 Social Science
(Sociology of World System)
Current 29.5% 36% 31% Previous 8.75% 7.5% 1.96% Increase 20.75% 28.5% 29.04%
Table 7 Ratios of Pictures in the New Textbooks
Considering both Table 6 and Table 7, we can understand that the written content is
reduced; however, comparing the quantity of pages which written text is helpful for a better
perception. Table 8 and Figure 2 depict this issue. Of course pictures support the idea of the
text and help students to understand the subject more deeply; but an overwhelming number
of pictures in the textbook will not benefit the procedure of education.
Sociology 1 Sociology 2 Social Science
(Sociology of World System) Current 77.5 57.5 93.75 Previous 109.5 122 150
Reduction 29.2% 52.8% 37.5% Table 8 Pages with Written Content in the New Textbooks
Figure 2 Reduction of the Quantity of Pages with Written Content
109.5 122
150
77.5
57.5
93.75
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
Sociology 1 Sociology 2 Social Science (Sociology of World System)
Page
s with
Wri
tten
Con
tent
Previous
Current
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 42
Another feature of the new books is that, unlike the previous books, most of the
sociological concepts do not have English equivalents in the footnote. Giving English
equivalents helps students to read English references about the topics they are interested in
and is useful for searching the web in order to have better perception of the lesson.
Furthermore, putting English equivalents makes the passage more academic, as the most of
the Persian university textbooks and dissertations have English equivalents of keywords in
the footnotes. The interpretation of not having English equivalent might be that the writers
want students to think these concepts are native sociological keywords and that they are not
been translated from other (Western) languages.
Pictures
As mentioned in the last section, the books contain lots of pictures. Mainly, the
pictures can be divided in two categories: those relevant to and irrelevant to the text. A
bicycle for social systems or a polar bear for practical reason and theoretical sciences are
examples of irrelevant pictures. Irrelevant is a broad concept and can be narrowed down into
more specified categories such as unhelpful, misleading, decorative, etc. For instance
although illustrating separate parts of a bicycle and an assembled one in one picture, will
show the concept of system, but it is not an appropriate example for the social system, a
dynamic phenomenon which is both influential among people and influenced by them.
Besides these misleading pictures, there are some simply decorative pictures such as a
hiking man portrait under the topic talking about self-consciousness. Some irrelevant
pictures are illustrated in Table 9 and a few examples of the relevant pictures, which are
helpful for better understanding the text, are shown in Table 10. It should be mentioned that
since most of the pictures do not have captions, figuring out the purpose of them is difficult.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 43
Passage Topic Picture Description Reference
Social System
- Sociology1 p. 21
Rational reason
- Sociology1p. 40
General Cognition
and Scientific Cognition
This card shows that
the owner of the card
wants to be an organ donor on
his/her death.
Sociology1 p. 82
Post-empirical
Approaches
Caption: The surgery was going
very well but unfortunately
the patient died.
Sociology1 p. 93
Self-awareness
- Sociology2 p. 36
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 44
Passage Topic Picture Description Reference
Identity and Social
Control
Caption: The winners of the student
Olympiad
Sociology2 p. 49
Causes of Inner
Cultural Changes
Caption: Carter and the Shah
Sociology2 p. 59
Table 9 Some Examples of Irrelevant Pictures in the New Textbooks
Passage Topic Picture Description Reference
Branches of Social Science
In the yellow circle appears social science
and in each blue circle, a branch of social science
like history, management,
etc.
Sociology1 p. 27
Subculture
Marrige Ceremony in Some Parts of
Iran
Sociology2 p. 18
Empire of the Media
-
Social Science
(Sociology of World System)
p. 67
Table 10 Examples of Relevant Pictures in the New Textbooks
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 45
Moreover, there are some pictures to deepen the specific view of the books. For
instance, choosing a picture of Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in the section defining
liberal democracy in order to imply that liberal democracy is not a proper way to governing
the country (Sociology 2, p.87), or illustrating pictures of Satanists meanwhile talking about
temporal cultures in order to indirectly say that Satanism is a consequence of Western
culture (Sociology 2, p. 60). In Sociology 2, where there is a discussion about ideal culture
and real culture, the passage is accompanied by two pictures of American Superman and an
Abu Ghraib prisoner to show that Western ideal culture is too far from its real culture (p.
22).
In addition, some pictures are purely Islamic. Although the size and the organization
of pictures are important, in case of numbers approximately there is 1 Islamic picture per 6,
which means 16% in total. Table 11 shows this fact.
Sociology 1 Sociology 2 Social Science (Sociology of
World System) Total
Pictures 118 101 151 370 Islamic Pictures 14 27 20 61
16.48% Table 11 Quantity of Pictures related to Islam in the New Textbooks
Authors of the books
In analyzing the books, it is very important to know who has been responsible for the
project of Islamizing of textbooks. In general the Organization of Educational Research and
Planning is in charge of composing the textbooks. The first textbook (Sociology 1) is
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 46
compiled by a group of writers (shown in table 12). And the other two textbooks are written
by single author, Hamid Parsania, the leading member of that group.
Name Affiliation
1 Hamid Parsania
• Head of Sociology Department, Imam Khomeini Educational & Research Institute
• Dean of Baqir Al-Olum University (2002-2007) • President of Seminary Commission of the Supreme Council
of Cultural Revolution
2 MohamadHosein Puriani
• President of Cultural and Social Studies Center, Islamic Culture and Science Institute
3 Seyyed Hossein Sharafedin
• Faculty Member of Imam Khomeini Educational & Research Institute
4 Shamsollah Mariji • Head of Sociology Department, Al-Mustafa International University
• Dean of Baqir Al-Olum University (Current)
5 Hasan Kheiri • Head of Sociology Department, Al-Mustafa International University (2010)
6 Latif Eivazi • Member of Social Science Department of Curriculum Development Center
7 Ebrahim Fathi • Faculty Member of Sociology Department, Baqir Al-Olum University
8 Nematollah Karamollahi
• Member of Cultural and Social Studies Center of Islamic Culture and Science Institute
9 Roghie Rudsarayi Table 12 Authors of Sociology 1
The first five authors in Table 12 are clerics, which means that they have received
religious studies in a seminary. At a first glance the table teaches us nothing unless we have
some information about the educational institutions included in the list.
The Islamic Culture and Science Institute (formerly the Islamic Propagation Office
of Qom Seminary), was established in 1983, in order to deepen and advance Islamic
knowledge and define the values of Islam and the revolution. Baqir Al-Olum University
(formerly Baqir Al-Olum Institute), a seminary-educational institute, was founded in 1984 in
order to promote culture and knowledge in the society and to disseminate Islamic
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 47
humanities. Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute, an institute with a seminary
identity, was founded in 1995 with substantial support from Ayatollah Khamenei. The
institution’s goals are: applying Islamic education in the humanities, training scholars in
Islamic sciences and humanities with scientific competence to deal with deviant and eclectic
ideas and educating teachers to supply faculty members at universities and seminaries. The
Dean of the institute is selected by Ayatollah Khamenei and now is Mohamad-Taqi Mesbah
Yazdi, a member of the Assembly of Experts14 who is one of the most conservative clerics
and a pioneer in the idea of creating Islamic humanities. Al-Mustafa International
University, a seminary basis university, was founded in 2007 for training scholars not only
in Iran but also worldwide. Having branches and affiliate schools in more than 60 countries
like Britain, Indonesia, Ghana, Japan, etc. as well as open university, Al-Mustafa is trying to
propagate Shiite concepts and Islamic revolution values internationally.
Generally, all these educational institutes and universities are conservative
institutions, mainly with a seminary identity, which try to propagate Islamic ideas and train
revolutionary ideologies. These institutions have been founded in favor of Ayatollah
Khomeini’s idea about ‘unity between university and seminary’. As Sakurai (2013) points
out, such institutions demonstrate government efforts to create modern seminaries, in which
not only religious topics but also English, IT, social science, etc. are being taught. In her
words, “such institutions blur the distinction between seminary and university, and facilitate
the engagement of clerics in non-clerics works” (p. 62). This is exactly what Ayatollah
Khomeini means by the unity between university and seminary, which is a basis for creating
Islamic humanities and as a result Islamic universities. Indeed, it is not merely about
14 This assembly is Composed of 88 Mujtahids (Islamic theologians), elected by public vote for eight-year period. They elect the leader and they can remove him if he becomes unable to do his duties or loses the qualifications that were needed for a leader such as integrity and piety.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 48
universities, since recently the ministry of education and the seminary signed a
memorandum of understanding for cooperation in order to achieve the educational
objectives based on the Quran viewpoints (Ilna, 2014). Hence the government is seeking to
unify the seminary with the entire educational system. Thus members of these institutions
are the best choices to write new textbooks based on Islamic concepts.
References
Surprisingly, the first book, Sociology 1, does not have any references written at the
end. But the two other books do have a reference list. In the lists there are books written by
authors who are not necessarily sociologists; instead they are conservative Shiite clerics,
philosophers, etc. In addition the reference list contains some books about the Absolute
Providence of Jurists, Shiite political ideology of Iran, and lots of books15 about Islamic
Awakening16.
General view
The books are written with a theological and philosophical view rather than a
sociological one. There are lots of religious keywords such as Islam, God, theism, belief,
divine revelation, Quran, Muslim, faith, Shiite, etc. In sum, there are 934 Islamic keywords
in these three books, which means an average of more than 4 Islamic and religious words on
each page.
In addition, the books contain some erroneous historical facts like how Islam had
been promoted in Iran (Social Sciences, p. 52). Also there are some contradictions in the
texts, for instance in the first book is written that the social world is the same as the social
15 11 out of 50 16 Arab Spring is called Islamic Awakening in Iran.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 49
system (Sociology1, p. 46) while the next book, Sociology 2, explains the differences
between the two (p. 10). The textbooks confuse students with lots of definitions of similar
concepts like social system, social world, etc. These keywords are defined in a vague way
and this makes teaching and learning very tough for both teachers and students.
The other common feature of the books is creating a kind of bipolarity between
Islam and the West. Some of the examples in which the books are trying to construct a
bipolarity between Islam and the West are: the temporal worldview of the West and spiritual
worldview of Islam, considering nature as a matter just for human usage in the West and
considering nature as a sign of God in Islam, ethics of Muslim athletes and modern athletes
ethics, secular definition of freedom in the West and Islamic definition of it, Islamic human
rights and humanistic Western human rights, living without temporal limitations and
become close to God or living with temporal values and become perverse, Islamic
enlightenment and Western enlightenment, etc. In addition, there is an predominantly
negative view toward the West in the books. By merely counting word “the West” and
grading the instances 5 for very negative and 1 for very positive and calculating the average,
the two tables below have been obtained.
Sociology 1 Sociology 2 Social Science (Sociology of World System)
3.3 3.6 3.71 Table 13 Views of the West in the New Textbooks (scaled)
Examples of what is considered typical of each scale point are shown in Table 14.
Scale Sentence Keywords
Very Negative
Western societies solve their own internal economic
challenges by exploitation of non-Western countries.
(Social Science, p. 92)
Domination - Colonialism – Freemasonry – Imperialism – Hostile View – Exploitation
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 50
Scale Sentence Keywords
Negative
Islamic Revolution of Iran is a result of Islamic
identity resistance against political and economic
invasion of the West. (Sociology 2, p. 70)
Secularism - Humanism – Crisis – Danger of Western Countries - Elimination of Religion
Neutral
By the modern world, we mean the West after the
Renaissance, the West in the last 400 years.
(Sociology 1, p. 67)
Western World – History of the West – Western Bloc – Western Culture – Western Countries
Positive Some of the Western elites are seeking for sacred
and religious traditions. (Social Science, p. 101)
Western Elites – Political and Economic Super Power of the West
Very Positive
Table 14 Example Sentences for Each Scale Point in the New Textbooks
Table 13 shows that all three books have an average score of more than 3 which
means the West is introduced in a negative way most of the time. Table 15 shows that out of
314 times the word “West” is used, there are only 12 instances in a positive sense and never
in a very positive sense.
Books
Scales Sociology
1 Sociology
2 Social Science
(Sociology of World System) Quantity Total Average
Very Negative 0 20% 20.1% 64 20.4% Negative 37.5% 28% 33% 103 32.8% Neutral 62.5% 44% 42.4% 135 43% Positive 0 8% 4.5% 12 3.8% Very Positive 0 0 0 0 0
314 100% Table 15 Views on the West in the New Textbooks (percentages)
The positive features of the current books in comparison to the old ones are
introducing some sociological theories such as positivism, critical sociology, etc. and some
social thinkers like Comte, Weber, etc. Although the books criticize all the so-called
Western approaches toward sociology, but even just mentioning them as a history of
sociology might be helpful for a interested student to read more. Furthermore, introducing
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 51
Muslim sociologists is a very good idea to familiarize student with their contribution to
sociology. Additionally, by reading through the old version of the books, one cannot give an
appropriate definition of sociology. Whilst the concept of sociology is well defined in these
new books, although in some cases definitions go beyond the remit so that it becomes more
philosophy of science rather than sociology.
After depicting overall view of the books, the rest of the chapter discusses each book
separately.
Sociology 1
Interestingly, this book is more related to philosophy of science rather than sociology
(58.5% of subtopics).17 The book introduces different approaches and methodologies of
sociology, such as positivism and the critical approach and goes on to depict the reasons
why these approaches are not useful and appropriate for today’s humankind. It seems that
the ultimate goal of the book is to justify an Islamic approach toward sociology.
The book divides social worlds into temporal and spiritual, then divides spiritual
social worlds into mythical and theistic and claims that both temporal and mythical views
are consequences of human deviation. Here is a typical quotation from the book: “A
mythical world is a result of a deviant view toward supernatural things, similar to a temporal
view, which is consequence of a deviant view toward natural things” (p. 101). The book
continues to explain social world as either true or void and asserts the only true way to view
the world is the theistic way. In addition, the book by considering intuitive cognition and
divine revelation as scientific knowledge, tries to legitimize the Islamic approach toward
sociology.
17 Appendix 3
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 52
Sociology 2
This 14-lesson book contains religious and ideological notions as well as sociology.
The book can be divided into two parts. The first part introduces some sociological concepts
and gives Islamic examples for all of them. And the second part puts forward political-
ideological concepts mixed with religious concepts.
Part one is mainly about culture and identity. In order to combine sociology and
religion, the book gives Islamic examples about each concept. For instance, in explaining
the relationship between social world and natural/supernatural world, the example is
understanding God and angels which can change goals and values of the human’s life and
reform their social actions (p. 6). On another page where it defines subcultures of economic
institutions, one of the examples is achieving God’s satisfaction (p. 19) and on the next page
the book talks about Islamic economics, which uses Islamic norms and values (p. 20). In
addition the book divides cultures into true and void cultures and introduces beliefs in
theism and theistic values as true culture (p. 25), and continues in arguing that for figuring
out the difference between the truth and nullity of a belief or value we need both reason and
divine revelation (p. 26). The book puts theism beside justice and freedom and asserts they
are true values regardless of being accepted by people or not (p. 28). In the next chapter, in
explaining the concept of identity, the book presents prophets as those who are concerned
about humans self, social and divine identity (p. 36). In addition for describing the
relationship between different identity segments, there are examples from the Quran and
Imam Sadiq, one of the Shiite Imams (p. 39 & 41). Furthermore, when the book wants to
give an example how worthy people can change the society, it talks about Ayatollah
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 53
Khomeini the leader of the revolution: “Imam18 Khomeini says: ‘A pious man [can] change
the world’. He himself was an example of people with his piety could change the history of
Iranian society, the Islamic nations and the whole human world” (p. 42). In another lesson,
talking about different types of social control the book gives an Islamic example, enjoining
good and forbidding wrong (p. 50). For depicting positive and negative social transitions,
the book points out Jahiliyyah,19 Prophetic and Umayyad20 societies (p. 59).
The last five lessons are more ideological than religious. Students are educated about
concepts such as alienation, the loss of self-identity, political admissibility and legitimacy.
Students become familiar with deep cultural damage, and the loss of self-identity.
Explaining the meaning of these ideas, the book continues to say “lots of non-Western
societies lost their identity when they faced with Western culture. They were intimidated by
the superior sociopolitical power of the West. The loss of identity of non-Western societies
confronting Western culture is called Westoxification” (p. 65). Westoxification is a very
negative notion in the literature of Iranian statesmen since the revolution and also is the title
a book written by Al-e Ahamd, one of the revolutionary ideologues. The next defined term
is cultural alienation. One of the explanations the book offers is when beliefs and values of
the society prevent society members from gaining a correct perception of mankind and the
world. The book claims that mythical, pagan, secular and temporal cultures alienate
humankind from the truth of the world and themselves (p. 66). Here, the book again tries to
obliterate any ideas other than the Islamic view. Two other important ideological terms are
admissibility and legitimacy of the political power. The book teaches students that an
18 In Iran Ayatollah Khomeini is also called Imam, which is a title for the twelve successors of the prophet in Shiite Islam. 19 Islamic concept for ignorance of divine guidance 20 One of the dynasties after the death of prophet Muhammad, which is not accepted by the Shiites
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 54
admissible political power is a power which people satisfactorily accept without any
reluctance, and unilaterally claims political legitimacy means that power is in accordance
with God’s orders.
In the last lesson, introducing different types of political systems, the book explains
merely two kinds, liberal democracy and Islamic republic, without even mentioning about
other possible types of governing the society. In the book, liberalism is defined as a
governing system in which everything is permissible for people. The passage continues in
this way: liberal democracy is a kind of political system that claims it is organized by
demand of the majorities. This form of government is consistent with temporal Western
culture, which denies scientific cognition of social values (p. 87). On the other pages there
are some explanations about Islamic republic. The book introduces Islamic republic as a
political system, which is noteworthy and remarkable for Islamic ummah21 in the Islamic
world. The ontology of this governmental form is theistic which uses reason and revelation.
Justice, freedom, independence and rejection of foreign domination of the Islamic ummah,
social security, efforts for development and prosperity of the country and participation in
public affairs are social values of Islam. These values do not have temporal and secular
interpretation; they are divine responsibilities and like individual worship are a reason for
proximity with Gad. This section concludes as follows: in some Islamic narrations the most
important Muslims’ responsibility is to follow Imam and the leader of the ummah. Islamic
ummah must refrain from accepting non-divine powers and be active in formation of the
divine province (p. 88).
21 Ummah is an Arabic world for nation or community, which are not necessarily limited to specific region. Here the phrase Islamic Ummah can be translated as Muslims all over the world.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 55
Social Science (Sociology of the World System)
This 4-chapter book contains 14 lessons. On the first pages, the book defines what
global culture is and explains how a culture can become global. The book points out two
types of cultures, which have become global over history: ones with beliefs and values
specified for a certain group of people such as Zionism and capitalism, and others which
have universal beliefs and values seeking the happiness for all humankind. Depicting
features for a proper global culture, the book continues explaining more about existing
global cultures such as imperialism, Western colonialism and neocolonialism. The book
coins a term, ultra-neocolonialism, and explains this as follows:
The Western world with ultra-neocolonialism is targeting the cultural identity of
other countries, which means that it attacks their beliefs, values and goals of other
cultures and instead promotes and propagates beliefs and values of the Western
culture … ultra-neocolonialism is seeking the spread and domination of the Western
culture universally and aims to Westernize the whole world in the name of
globalism. (p. 22)
In the next lesson, the book introduces Islam as a religion, which can configure a
global culture. The book claims that Islam is a universal religion, which is not specified for a
particular time and place. It has constant values consistent with nature of humankind, so that
it can be a global culture (p. 24). The book goes on to explain about Islam and gives some
historical information about how Islam has been promoted in the world. Then the book
mentions the Islamic revolution as a highlighted point in Islamic history and asserts that
Islamic ummah by inspiration from the Islamic revolution has promoted Islamic global
culture to a new stage through Islamic awakening (p. 29). In order to justify Islam and
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 56
Islamic perceptions of society, the book needs something else to be contrasted with Islam.
Hence the book puts the West against Islam to illustrate how inappropriate Western culture
is and how Islamic culture can be a suitable replacement. To achieve this goal, the book
continues comparing the Islamic world and the Western world in a bipolar way.
In the chapter named contemporary Western culture, the book describes fundamental
beliefs of the West and represents Western culture by using some words such as secularism,
humanism, enlightenment, empiricism, rationalism and deism and defines each term in a
negative way. Then the book discusses the formation of modern West culture, the world
society and the West. One of the remarkable features of the book is introducing the West in
a negative way, sometimes by very strange sentences such as the following:
Western culture cannot defend its political and economic aspects. It is like an old
animal which, despite of its huge body, is crippled and vulnerable because of mental
disability. (p. 99)
If a human limits himself to the temporal22 dimensions of himself, he will become
perverse and live like an animal or even more abjectly. (p. 36)
The next chapter, the most anti-Western one in the book, introduces world
challenges that are mainly exist in the West or are caused by the West. The challenges are
economic, political, social, cultural, regional and trans-regional, sectional and continuous,
micro and macro, spiritual and religious, scientific and knowledge, inner-cultural and inter-
cultural, civilization, essential and formal (p. 77). The book neither explains these
challenges nor gives evidence or examples relating to each challenge. Then the book starts
to criticize culture, economics and intellectual traditions. Using the story of Oliver Twist and
the great famine in Ireland, the book tries to employ both relevant and irrelevant means to
22 Implying Western culture.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 57
show how weak economic liberalism is (p. 79). In addition the book points out that the West
has faced lots of economic crises during its history and solved their own troubles by
economic exploitation of non-Western countries (p. 92). The book also seeks to find the
origin of the World Wars in the culture of the West and says the opponents of the war justify
their actions by their nationalist, liberalist and socialist ideologies, so that war itself is rooted
back in Western culture (p. 87). The book also assumes that the environment crisis is
because of the attitude of modern human and Western culture toward the environment.
Another Western crisis presented in the book is the knowledge crisis, which consists mainly
of the collapse of enlightenment thinking and the formation of postmodernism, as well as the
incompatibility of this knowledge with the economic demands of the West (p. 99). In order
to define Western views toward science the book claims that, by promoting modern science,
the West was looking to persuade non-Western elites that following the Western culture is
the only way for progress and development (p. 97). The last crisis mentioned in this chapter
is the spiritual crisis. The book claims, denying spiritual values and having secular view
toward the world will lead the humankind to nihilism (p. 101). So the West is now facing the
decline of secularism and post secularism.
The next chapter, named Islamic World, is mainly about the Islamic revolution and
Islamic Awakening (Arab Spring). The chapter starts by introducing secular powers in
Muslim countries like Reza Shah in Iran, Ataturk in Turkey and Amanullah Khan in
Afghanistan and entitles them Westoxified intellectuals, who bring colonial despotism in
Islamic countries (p.110). By addressing historical incidents, the book continues to explain
how Islamic revolution occurs. Islamic revolution is defined as a revolution with cultural
and civilizational identity, which transcends the political polarization of East and West and
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 58
establishes a new cultural and civilizational unity, the Islamic world. (p. 121) Islamic
revolution is proposed as a new pole in the world by saying: Islamic revolution destroyed
stable status of two political polarization of twenty century and imposed a new polarization
on the world (p.132).
The book claims that the Islamic revolution not only was a revival in spiritualism
and theism, but also creates a new opportunity for the West to pass its own crises (p. 128).
Furthermore the book sees the Islamic Awakening (Arab Spring) as an outcome of Islamic
revolution (p. 129), and claims as a result of the Islamic Awakening, religious and spiritual
approaches have emerged in the West so the post-Renaissance values have lost their global
position (p. 132). Finally, after claiming Islamic revolution and Iran as a new hub in the
world and enumerating many crises for the West, the book comes up with the conclusion
that the West regardless of its own crises and for its economic and political demands have
no choice but confront the Islamic world. Hence the West is doing following actions:
1. Military and political confronting through direct presence, as happened in
Afghanistan and Iraq
2. Economic sanctions through international organizations, such as in Iran’s case
3. Spreading false spirituality and secular culture in Western countries to heal the
spiritual emptiness of the West
4. Creating violent and irrational imagination of Islamic culture by organizing the
Wahhabi23 terrorism
5. Forming secular interpretations of Islam and supporting American Islam24 for
falsification of Islamic revolution
23 Fundamentalist and extremist Muslim sect 24 A Word coined by Ayatollah Khomeini, refers to pseudo-Islam.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 59
6. Managing a media war against the Islamic cultural movement
7. Creation of sectarian and religious discord in order to weaken the Islamic world
(p. 135)
Discussion
Although the books are supposed to teach Islamic sociology, the texts are more anti-
Western rather than Islamic. The books firstly criticize all approaches toward sociology,
from positivism to rationalism. Considering revelation as a from of scientific cognition, the
books try to introduce Islamic methodology, which uses both reason and revelation. The
books name the social world with such methodology the theistic world and claim any other
view, either temporal or mythical, is a consequence of human deviation. The books continue
to explain some sociological concepts and give both anti-Western and Islamic examples.
Then, introducing just two types of political system, and by criticizing and suggesting
incorrect definition of liberal democracy, force students to believe the only way to
governing the country is the Islamic republic. But criticizing and denying what the books
name “Western” methodology, worldview and political system and claiming superiority of
Islam in methods and governing system, does not content the writers. Hence in the last book,
which is the most anti-Western book, by presenting the West with lots of cultural and
economic crises, it attempts to introduce Islam as a global culture and a new cultural pole.
This echoes the slogan of “Global Management”25 repeated many times by Mahmood
Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran.
25 Ahmadinejad talked about global management at the UN assembly as well. See http://gadebate.un.org/67/iran-islamic-republic
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 60
Another notable feature of the textbooks is that, although there are many Islamic
concepts in the books, they never talk about Sunni Muslims, the largest branch of Islam.
Even though the books introduce Islamic Awakening, it is not mentioned that the majority of
Egyptians or Tunisians are Sunnis; rather, the book purports that the Islamic Awakening is
inspired from Islamic revolution (Social Science, p. 129), which has a Shiite identity (Ibid,
p. 131). Furthermore, without using the phrase “Absolute Providence of Jurists”, the book
defines the political ideology of Iran and names it the ideal Shiite governing system (Ibid, p.
118). The book indirectly suggests that the only way of thinking and only religion is Islam;
the only Islam is Shiite and the only Shiite is one who believes in the Absolute Providence
of Jurists. Hence the books can be considered as ideological textbooks.
Furthermore, the reduction of both the absolute quantity and the relative proportion
of written text, plus the introduction of a number of confused and confusing concepts,
implies that the authors themselves were not sure what they have to include in the textbooks
as Islamic sociology. They comprehend well what they do not want to be taught in schools,
but do not understand clearly what they want to be taught. This is because the term Islamic
humanities is still a vague concept, both for Iranian elites and politicians.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 61
Chapter 8. Conclusion
Ever since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the new established government has been
seeking to stabilize Islamic ideology in the society. This means that the ruling power wants
Shiite Islam to be considered not only in the private life of the people, but also intends to use
it as a tool in social life in order to control and govern the society. The Iranian government
knows the power of the educational system in shaping public opinion. Hence the new regime
tries to instill Islamic ideology through schools and textbooks. Islamizing of educational
institutions is not an immediate project; it is a process, which has started in the very first
years after the revolution and is still in progress.
Although the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution had changed textbooks after
the revolution in 80s and continuously revises textbooks to ensure they are in conformity
with Islamic principles, recently in past few yeas, some statements have included claims that
the humanities, which are taught in schools and universities, are not Islamic enough. It is
said, “Propagation of the Western humanities in non-Western countries … makes [people
with] spiritual and religious culture view their identity through the perspective of Western
culture. This phenomenon deprives cultures of religious and divine based sciences” (Social
Science, 2013, 69). According to this interpretation of so-called Western humanities, the
Council for Humanities Development and Promotion was established in 2009, in order to
Islamize humanities. As a first step for creating Islamic humanities, sociology textbook of
high school has been totally changed in 2010 and the goal of this thesis was to find out how
and why the books were changed.
The overall results of analyzing the old and new versions of the textbooks indicate
that the goal of the new books is to justify the Islamic republic’s worldview by trying to
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 62
abolish all of the theories and approaches toward sociology. The main purpose of the books
is to instruct a generation who believe in the Islamic republic as an ideal way of governing
the country. Furthermore, the occasion in which the changes of the books happened,
strengthen this idea that the latent purpose of the regime for Islamizing humanities is to
legitimize its own doctrines.
Although analyzing text and pictures of the textbooks can illustrate the viewpoint of
them, examining tasks given to students would also help the process of analyzing. In this
thesis tasks were not reviewed carefully, since the teachers’ books were not available. In
addition conducting in-depth interview with teachers who had taught both old and new
versions of the textbooks could have been worthwhile, but as I was not in Iran, I could not
conduct such interviews. Further researches could be done on these two factors and also on a
probable revised version of the books in near future.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 63
References
Adams, I. (1993). Introduction. Political ideology today. (pp. 1-11). UK: Manchester
University Press.
Apple, M. W. (2004). On analyzing hegemony. Ideology and Curriculum. (pp. 1-24). New
York, NY: Routledge Falmer.
Apple, M. W., & Weis, L. (1983). Ideology and practice in schooling: A political and
conceptual introduction. Ideology and practice in school. (pp. 3-28). Philadelphia,
PA: Temple University Press.
Arani, A., Kakia, L., & Karimi, V. (2012). Assessment in Education in Iran. SA-eDUC
Journal 9(2). Retrieved from
http://www.nwu.ac.za/sites/www.nwu.ac.za/files/files/p-
saeduc/New_Folder_1/3_Assessment%20in%20education%20in%20Iran.pdf
Bahonar, M. J. (1985). The goals of Islamic education, Al-Tawhid, 2, 93-107. Retrieved
from http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/vol2-n4/goals-islamic-education-
muhammad-jawad-bahonar/goals-islamic-education
BBC Persian. (2013, December 17). 71% of Tehran’s population watch foreign channels.
Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2013/12/131217_l39_satellite_ban_jannati
Bernstein, B. (1971). On the classification and framing of educayional knowledge. Class,
codes and control I: Theoretical studies towards a sociology of language. (pp. 156-
177). London: Routledge.
Boroujerdi, M. (1992). Gharbzadegi. In S. K. Farsoun & M. Mashayekhi (Eds.). Iran:
Political Culture in the Islamic Republic. (pp. 20-38). London: Routledge.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 64
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1977). Dependence through independence. (R. Nice, Trans.)
Reproduction in education, society and culture. (pp. 177-219). London: SAGE
Publication Ltd.
Dabashi, H. (2005). Theology of discontent: The ideological foundation of the Islamic
Revolution in Iran. (pp. 1-215). New Jersey, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Dabbagh, S. (2010, March). Disipline jadid, emkan ya emtenaa. Chegune mitavan olume
ensanie eslami dasht? [The New Discipline: Possibility or Refusal. How Can we
Have Islamic Humanities?] Mehrnameh, 1. Retrieved from
http://www.mehrnameh.ir/article/145/%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%B3%DB%8C%D9
%BE%D9%84%DB%8C%D9%86-
%D8%AC%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF%25%E2%80%A6
Devereux, E. (2003). Analyzing media content: Media ‘re-presentation’ in a divided world.
Understanding the media (pp. 115-133). London: Sage Publications.
Fars News. (2009, August, 25). Hajarian’s Confession. Retrieved from
http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8806030459
Godazgar, H. (2008). Post-1979 re-organization of education in Iran. The impact of religious
factors on educational change in Iran: Islam in Policy and Islam in Practice. (pp.
101-127). New York, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press.
Haghayeghi, M. (1993). Politics and ideology in Islamic Republic of Iran. Middle Eastern
Studies 29(1), 36-52.
Hamshahri Online. (2011, February 14). 40% of students are enrolling in Natural Sciences.
Retrieved from http://hamshahrionline.ir/details/128328
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 65
Hashemi, A. (2013, December 25). Textbook or political bulletin? Ghanoon Daily.
Retrieved from http://ghanoondaily.ir/Default.aspx?NPN_Id=329&pageno=10
Hsieh, H. F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis.
Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277-1288. Retrieved from
http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/15/9/1277
Ilna. (2014, August 3). Ministry of education and the seminary signed a memorandum of
understanding. Retrieved from http://ilna.ir/news/news.cfm?id=191522
Krippendorff, K. (2004) Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology. London:
Sage Publications.
Kuckartz, U. (2014). The building blocks of systematic qualitative text analysis. Qualitative
text analysis (pp. 15-34). London: Sage Publications.
Lasswell, H. D. (1946). Describing the content of communications. Propaganda,
communication, and public opinion (pp.74-94). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Lasswell, H. D. (1948). The structure and function of communication in society. In L.
Bryson (Ed.). The communication of ideas (pp. 37-51). New York, NY: Institute for
Religious and Social Studies.
MacKenzie, I. (1994). The idea of ideology. Political ideologies: An introduction. (pp. 2-16).
London: Routledge.
Mahdi, A. A. (2010). Sociology in Iran: Between politics, religion and Western influence. In
S. Patel (Ed.). The ISA handbook of diverse sociological traditions. (pp. 268-279).
London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 66
Mayring, P. (2000). Qualitative content analysis. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung /
Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 1(2), Art. Retrieved from
http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1089/2385
Mehran, G. (1989). Socialization of school children in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranian
Studies, 22(1), 33-50.
Mehran, G. (1990). Ideology and education in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Compare: A
Journal of Comparative and International Education, 20(1), 53-65. DOI:
10.1080/0305792900200105
Mehran, G. (2002). The presentation of the “self” and the “other” in post-revolutionary
Iranian textbooks. In N. R. Keddie & R. Matthee (Eds.). Iran and the surrounding
world: Introduction in culture and cultural politics. (pp. 232-251). Seattle, WA:
University of Washington Press.
Mehran, G. (2007a). Iran: A Shi'ite curriculum to serve the Islamic state. In E. A. Doumato
& G. Starrett (Eds.). Teaching Islam: Textbooks and religion in the Middle East.
Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Mehran, G. (2007b). Religious education of Muslim and non-Muslim schoolchildren in the
Islamic Republic of Iran. In C. Brock, & L. Z. Levers (Ed.). Aspects of education in
the Middle East and North Africa. (pp. 99-125). UK: Cambridge University Press.
Mehrnews. (2012, June 15). Academic courses in contradict to the principles of Islam.
Retrieved from http://www.mehrnews.com/TextVersionDetail/1626757
Menashri, D. (1992). Epilogue. Education and the making of modern Iran. (pp. 307-328).
New York, NY: Cornell University Press.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 67
Moaddel, M. (1993). Class, politics, and ideology in the Iranian Revolution. New York,
NY: Colombia University Press.
Nafisi, R. (1992). Education and the culture of politics in the Islamic republic of Iran. In S.
K. Farsoun, & M. Mashayekhi (Eds.). Iran: Political culture in the Islamic Republic.
(pp. 110-122). London: Routledge.
National Curriculum of Islamic Republic of Iran. (2012). Retrieved from
http://www.roshd.ir/mainpage/others/news/sanad.pdf
National Master Plan for Science and Education. (2011). Part one. Retrieved from
http://www.msrt.ir/fa/SiteCollectionImages/M01.pdf
Neal, M. R. (2013). Media content analysis: qualitative methods. In K. E. Dill (Ed.). The
Oxford handbook of media psychology (pp. 513-533). New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Paivandi, S. (2008). Discrimination and intolerance in Iran’s textbooks. Washington, DC:
Freedom House. Retrieved from http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/special-
reports/discrimination-and-intolerance-irans-textbooks#.U9kWuuNmMjI
Paivandi, S. (2010). Ruyaruyi ba amuze haye ideologic dar nezame amuzeshi [Iranian youth
vis-à-vis an ideological education system]. Iran Name, xxv (4). Retrieved from
http://fis-iran.org/fa/irannameh/volxxv/4-political-crisis/ideological-education-
system
Paivandi, S. (2013). Iran: the Islamization of the school. In M. Ahmed (Ed.). Education in
West central Asia. (pp. 79-101). New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.
Parsania, H. (2013). Social science (Sociology of world system). Tehran: Iran Textbook
Publishing Company.
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 68
Parsania, H. (2013). Sociology 2. Tehran: Iran Textbook Publishing Company.
Parsania, H., Puriani, M. H., Sharafedin, S. H., Mariji, S., Kheiri, H., Eivazi, L., …
Rudsarayi, R. (2013). Sociology 1. Tehran: Iran Textbook Publishing Company.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods. California, CA: Sage
Publications.
Rajabzadeh, A. (2003). Sociology 1. Tehran: Iran Textbook Publishing Company.
Rajabzadeh, A. (2004). Social Science (Sociology of World System). Tehran: Iran Textbook
Publishing Company.
Rajabzadeh, A. (2007). Sociology 2. Tehran: Iran Textbook Publishing Company.
Riffe, D., Lacy, S., & Fico, F. G. (2005). Analyzing media messages using
quantitative content analysis in research. (pp. 1-30). London: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Publishers.
Rivard, J., & Amadio, M. (2003). Teaching time allocated to religious education in official
timetables. Prospects 33(2), 211–217.
Rouhani’s speech in appreciation ceremony of superior university professors. (2014, May
4). Retrieved from http://www.tasnimnews.com/Home/Single/358739
Rouhani’s speech in University of Tehran. (2014, October 7). Retrieved from
http://www.tasnimnews.com/Home/Single/520736
Rouhani’s viewpoints about education. (2013, June 3). Retrieved from
http://aftabnews.ir/fa/news/196155
Sahimi, M. (2009). The Bloody Red Summer of 1988, Retrieved from
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/08/the-bloody-red-
summer-of-1988.html
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 69
SAIC Research Report. (2007). Iranian textbooks and context. Retrieved from
http://fas.org/irp/dni/osc/irantext.pdf
Sakurai, K. (2004). University entrance examination and the making of an Islamic society in
Iran: a study of the post-revolutionary Iranian approach to “Konkur”. Iranian
Studies, 37(3), 385-406. DOI: 10.1080/0021086042000287505
Sakurai, K. (2013). Iran: Three-dimensional conflicts. In M. Ahmed (Ed.). Education in west
central Asia. (pp. 57-77). New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.
Scruton, R. (2007). Dictionary of political thought, New York, NY: The Macmillan Press.
Sharifi, A. (2011, July). The Review of Sociology 1. Lecture conducted from Iranian
Association for Sociology of Education, Tehran.
Supreme Leader’s Address to University Professors. (2009, August 30) Retrieved from
http://english.khamenei.ir//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1203&It
emid=4
Supreme Leader’s Address to University Professors. (2014, July 2). Retrieved from
http://english.khamenei.ir//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1928&It
emid=4
Ta’alimat e Ejtemaei [Social Teaching] grade 5, Ministry of Education, 2013. Retrieved
from http://www.chap.sch.ir/sites/default/files/books/93-94/4/137-166-C24.pdf
Tabnak. (2010, September 19). Details of changing in textbooks. Retrieved from
http://www.tabnak.ir/fa/news/120820
Tasnim News Agancy. (2014, May 13). 20 million absolute-illiterate and low-illiterate in
Iran. Retrieved from: http://www.tasnimnews.com/Home/Single/367595
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 70
The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Retrieved from
http://en.parliran.ir/index.aspx?siteid=84&pageid=320
The Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (650th Session, 2009, October, 12).
Establishment of the Specialized Council for Humanities Development and
Promotion. Retrieved from http://en.farhangoelm.ir/SCCR/Most-important-
ratifications-of-SCCR-during-the-pa.aspx
Wallace, A. C. (1956). Revitalization movements, American Anthropologist, 58, 264-281.
Williams, R. (1976). Keywords. (pp. 154-157). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Zhang, Y., & Wildemuth, B. M. (2005). Qualitative analysis of content. Analysis, 1(2), 1-12.
Retrieved from https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~yanz/Content_analysis.pdf
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 71
Appendix 1. Table of Contents of the Old Textbooks
Sociology 1 (2003)
Role
o Learn More about the Role § Role as a Label § Role Expectations
o How do we unify with roles? § Rising of Roles § Practicing a Role § Accepting and Acting a Role
o What is the function of roles in our life? § Disciplining § Discipline of Social Life
o In which situations people do not play their role properly? (1) § Unfamiliarity with the Responsibilities of the Role § Ambiguity of the Role
o In which situations people do not play their role properly? (2) § Inappropriateness of One’s Characteristics and Abilities with the Role § Conflict of the Role
o What happens if people do not play their role properly? § Consequences of Unfamiliarity with the Responsibilities of the Role § Consequences of Conflict of the Role
o How to Choose?
Interests and Social Inequity
o What are social interests? o Which are the most important social interests? o Why are there inequalities in social interests?
§ Power o In which situation inequity is considered unfair?
§ Same Roles, Unequal Enjoyment § Different Patterns of Division of Labor § Spread of Values
o What happens if there is inequity in benefiting from social interests? § Dissatisfaction § Discussion, Argument, Protest § Hostility § Immigration § Doubting about Values and Deviant § Change in Values
o Equality or Inequality?
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 72
§ Equal Enjoyment, Necessity of Social Life Survival § Unequal Enjoyment, Necessity of Acting Role § Unequal Enjoyment, Destroyer of Social Life
o How to increase our share of social interests? § One’s Activity § Education § Marriage § Civil Organizations
Identity
o Who am I? o How does our identity form and change?
§ Role and Identity § Being a Group Member and Identity § Individual Characteristics § Social Identity
o Why do we change our identity? § Loosing One’s Identity and Alienation
o How to form our identity? Sociology 2 (2007) Identity
o What is the role of situation in finding one’s identity?
§ Self and situation o What is the role of others in finding one’s identity?
§ Comparison, Basis for Self-Cognition § Others’ Approval and Identity § Dialogue and Identity § Power and Identity
o What is the role of narrative in finding one’s identity? § Narrative § Types of Important Narrative
o What are the good characteristics for us to be introduced with? § Types of Characteristics § Consequences of Emphasis on Creativity for a Person and the Society
o Which are Iranian’s Characteristics? § Common Beliefs, Values and Norms § Place § Language § Literature § History
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 73
§ Figures and Heroes § Cultural Heritage
o As an Iranian, what narratives do we know ourselves with? § Important Iranian Situations
o How much do we like Iran and feeling responsible for it? § Belongingness § Commitment
Interests o How are the interests being distributed?
§ Features, as a Basis for Distribution of Interests § Features, Roles and Enjoyment of Interests
o What kind of interests’ distribution is called discrimination? § Classification of Features § Values and Beliefs, a Basis for Judgment § Inherent Features, Natural Phenomenon or Kind of Discrimination?
o How does wealth accumulation happen? § Wealth Accumulation § Ownership and Wealth Accumulation § Consequences of Wealth Accumulation § Societies Experience in Distribution of Accumulated Wealth
o How does power accumulation happen? § Power Accumulation § Power Accumulation in a Political System (Government)
o What are the consequences of power accumulation? § Positive Consequences § Reduction in Capability and Creativity § Anxiety and Fear
o In what situation, is power accumulation in social system reduced? § Separation of Powers § Limitation of Tenure
o In which stratification system, mobility is more possible? § Status § Stratification System, Stratification and Stratum § Types of Social Mobility § Social Closure
o What is the role of knowledge in enjoyment of interests and social mobility? § The Role of Knowledge in Earning Interests § Influence of Knowledge in Increase of White-collars § Changes is Stratification
o Which factors are limiting social mobility? § Unequal Situation for Education, Reasons and Consequences § Psychic and Mental Features and Social Mobility
o How to reduce deprivation and obstruction? § Society Reaction to New Values and Beliefs § Ways of Social Mobility Limitation Removal in Democratic Societies
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 74
Social Science (Sociology of World System) (2004) Society and Its Social Environment (World System)
o Durability of Social Life § Adaptation § Pattern Maintenance § Integration § Goal Attainment
o Concept of the Society § Nation-State
o World System (International System) o Evolution of Social World o Merging of the Societies in the World System
§ Colonialism § Semi-colonialism
Political Relations between Societies o Foreign Policy
§ States Goals in International Environment § Means to Reach the Goals in International Environment § Foreign Policy
o International Political Structure § Status of Countries in International Political Structure § Transnational Institutions § International Regimes
o Internal Societies Status and International Environment Economical Relations between Societies
o Different Types of Economical Relations o Influence of Political Relations on Economical Relations o Economical Relations between Societies And Its Unwanted Consequences
§ Value Added § Transfer of Value Added and Unequal Exchange § Economical Interdependence
o World Economy § Multinational Corporations § Common Market § International Economic Institutions
o Formation of World Economy § Industrialized and Unindustrialized Societies § Developed and Undeveloped Societies § Core, Semi-Peripheral and Peripheral Societies § Relations between Developed and Undeveloped Societies
Cultural Relations between Societies o Different Types of Cultural Transfer between Societies
§ Cultural Diffusion § Cultural Exchange § Cultural Invasion
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 75
o Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations § Control and Guidance of the Culture
o Formation of Transnational Cultural Relations o One-Way and Unequal Cultural Relationship in World System
The World and We o Iran’s Status in World System
§ History of Iran and the World System Relations in the Last Two Centuries
o Change of Iran’s Status in World System o Iran, Change and Reform in World System
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 76
Appendix 2. Table of Contents of the New Textbooks
Sociology 1 (2013)
Social Science
1. Human Action o Definition of Human Action o Features of Human Action o Outcomes of Human Action
2. Humanities o Definition of Humanities o Difference between Humanities and Natural Sciences o Difference between Humanities and Metaphysics
3. Importance of Humanities o Career o Benefits of Natural Sciences o Benefits of Humanities
4. Social Action o Definition of Human Action o Social Phenomena o Social System
5. Social Sciences o Importance of Social Sciences o Branches of Social Sciences
6. History of Sociology o Positivistic Sociology o Interpretive Sociology o Critical Sociology
7. History of Social Science in Greece and Islamic World o Theme and Importance of Social Science o Cities Management o Practical Reason
Social World 8. Social and Natural World
o Features of Organisms o Social World in Comparison with Organisms o Culture and Reproduction of Social World
9. Components and Layers of Social World o Component of Social World o Layers of Social world
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 77
o Symbols and Beliefs 10. Social Worlds
o Diversity of Social World o Changes in Social World o Pivotal Features of Islamic World
11. Outcomes of social World o Certain Outcomes o Opportunities and Constraints o Modern World
12. Different Types of Social World o Vertical Relations in Social Worlds o Horizontal Relations in Social Worlds o Temporal and Spiritual worlds
Social Cognition 13. Social Cognition
o General Cognition o Scientific Cognition o Relationship between General and Scientific Cognition
14. Different Types of Scientific Cognitions o Culture and Science o Rational Cognition and Sensory Cognition o Intuitive Cognition
15. Empirical Social Cognition o Empirical Cognition in Today’s World o Empirical Approach to Social Sciences o Post-Empirical Approaches
16. Rational Social Cognition o Different Types of Rational Cognition o Rational Approach to Social Science o Pros and Cons of Rational Approach
17. Intuitive Social Cognition o Mythical World o Theistic World o Revelatory Knowledge
18. Social Cognition in Quran o Social Cognition Method o Society in Quran o Social Traditions
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 78
Sociology 2 (2013) Culture and Society
1. Range of Social World o Phenomena in the Social World o Expansion of social World
2. Social System o Social Structure o Differences between Social System and Social World o Social institution
3. Culture 1 o Definition of Culture o Culture and Subculture o Cultural Institutions
4. Culture 2 o Ideal and Real Culture o True and Void Culture o Truth and Reality
Culture and Identity 5. Identity
o Who am I? o Different Features of Identity o Self Consciousness
6. Self and Social Identity o Difference between Self and Social Identity o Interaction of Different sections of Identity o Propriety of Social and Self Identity
7. Reproduction of Social Identity o Social Identity and Socialization o Identity and Social Control o Steps of Social Control
8. Identity Changes and Social Mobility o Adventitious Identity and Social Mobility o Social Opportunities o Cultural Conflicts
9. Cultural Identity Changes o Social Identity of People and Cultural Identity of Society o Cultural Unstableness and Identity Crisis o Inner Cause of Cultural Changes
10. Cultural Alienation
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 79
o Communications between Cultures o Loss of Cultural Self Identity o Cultural Alienation
11. Iranian Identity o Iranian Identity before and after of Islam o Iranian Identity Faced with Western Culture o Iranian Identity and Islamic Revolution
Power and Policy 12. Power and Authority
o Social Power o Admissibility and Authority o Admissibility and Legitimacy
13. Political System o Policy and Government o Relationship between Political System and Cultural and Economical Systems o Political Ideals and Values
14. Types of Political Systems o Typology of Political Systems o Liberal Democracy o Islamic Republic
Social Science (Sociology of World System) (2013)
Global Culture
1. Cultural World o Human World and Cultural World o Cultural World and Objective World o Interaction of Cultural and Objective World
2. Global Culture o Historical Diversity of Cultures o Different Capacity of Cultures for Being Global o Features of Desirable Global Culture
3. Global Cultures 1 o Kingdom and Empire o Imperialism and Western Colonialism o Neocolonialism and Ultra-neocolonialism
4. Global Cultures 2 o Universal Beliefs and Values of Islam o Stages of Spread of Islamic Culture o Colonialism and Islamic Awakening
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 80
Contemporary Western Culture 5. Fundamental Beliefs and Values of Western Culture
o Secularism and Temporal approaches o Humanism and genuineness of Temporal Human o Enlightenment and Modern Sciences
6. Creation of Modern Western Culture o Renaissance and Its Historical Background o Philosophy of Enlightenment and Modern Culture of the West o Industry, Economy, Policy and Rights
7. International Society o International relations and World System o International Society in the Past and Now o Creation of Modern Social World
8. Changes in Social World o Sociopolitical Changes o Nation-States Wane and Globalization o Media, Science and Cultural Empire
World Challenges 9. Bipolar World
o Social Solidarity and New Challenges o Challenge of Poverty and Wealth o Creation of Eastern and Western Bloc
10. Wars, Crises and International Conflicts o World Wars o Economic Crises o South and North
11. Environmental, Spiritual and Knowledge Crises o Environmental Crises and its Social Movements o Knowledge-Science Crises and Postmodernism o Spiritual Crises and Post-secularism
Islamic World 12. Muslim Awakeners and Westoxified Intellectuals
o Pioneers of Islamic Awakening o Westoxified Intellectuals o Nationalist and Marxist Intellectuals
13. Islamic Revolution of Iran o Constitutional Revolution o Islamic Revolution o Differences between Islamic Revolution and Liberated Revolutions
14. Islamic Awakening
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 81
o First Revolution o Islamic Movements and Revolutions o Cultural Geography of the New World
Redirecting Islamic Humanities in Iran 82
Appendix 3. Subtopics of Sociology 1 (2013)
Philosophy
of Science
(58.5%)
Definition of Humanities, Difference between Humanities and Natural
Sciences, Difference between Humanities and Metaphysics, Career, Benefits
of Natural Sciences, Benefits of Humanities, Importance of Social Sciences,
Branches of Social Sciences, Theme and Importance of Social Science,
Practical Reason, Features of Organisms, Social World in Comparison with
Organisms, Vertical Relation in Social Worlds, Horizontal Relation in
Social Worlds, Temporal and Spiritual worlds, General Cognition, Scientific
Cognition, Relationship between General and Scientific Cognition, Culture
and Science, Rational Cognition and Sensory Cognition, Intuitive Cognition,
Empirical Cognition in Today’s World, Empirical Approach to Social
Sciences, Post-Empirical Approaches, Different Types of Rational,
Cognition, Rational Approach to Social Science, Pros and Cons of Rational
Approach, Mythical World, Theistic World, Revelatory Knowledge, Social
Cognition Method
Sociology
(35.8 %)
Definition of Human Action, Features of Human Action, Outcomes of
Human Action, Definition of Human Action, Social Phenomena, Social
System, Positivistic Sociology, Interpretive Sociology, Critical Sociology
Cities Management, Culture and Reproduction of Social World, Component
of Social World, Layers of Social world, Symbols and Beliefs, Diversity of
Social World, Changes in Social World, Certain Outcomes, Opportunities
and Constraints, Modern World
Theology (5.7%)
Pivotal Features of Islamic World, Society in Quran, Social Traditions
Recommended