Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T12:42:08.944Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Forlorn Arabs and Flying Americans: National Identity in the Early Childhood Curriculum of Postrevolutionary Iran, 1979–2009

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2022

Shervin Malekzadeh
Shervin Malekzadeh*
Affiliation:
Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA
*
Email: sm424@georgetown.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing upon three decades of postrevolutionary textbooks, this article traces the development of the Arab Muslim as a recurring character in the early elementary curriculum of the Islamic Republic, set against the historical context of Iranian modernization and state formation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Sympathy for the Arab by the postrevolutionary state included a rebuke and an affirmation: Look at what has happened to the Arabs who were not able to defend their homes and their homeland, and look at what has not happened to us. Set against the Palestinian Arab figure are the accomplishments of American scientists and inventors who feature prominently in the postrevolutionary curriculum as sources of emulation for young readers. Star turns from Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Orville and Wilbur Wright invite a reconsideration of the role of the foreign Other in the construction of Iranian national identity, notably the expectation that the dispossessed constitute natural allies in Iran's ceaseless struggle against “the West.” Islamization of the primary school curriculum since 1979 has not come at the expense of Iranian national identity but as its expression, elucidating the ways postrevolutionary educational materials can serve as a repository for tracing the continuities and permutations in depicting the Arab or Western Other as well as different civilizational ethos of the Islamic and Persianate world across time.

Keywords

ArabsidentityIrannationalismPersianspostrevolutionary educationtextbooks
Type
Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 55 , Special Issue 3: Persianate Pasts; National Presents: Persian Literary and Cultural Production in the Twentieth Century , July 2022 , pp. 741 - 764
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Iranian Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aghaie, Kamran Scot. “Islam and Nationalist Historiography: Competing Historical Narratives of Iran in the Pahlavi Period.” Studies on Contemporary Islam 2, no. 2 (2000): 20–46.Google Scholar
Amanat, Abbas. “Iranian Identity Boundaries: A Historical Overview.” In Iran Facing Others: Identity Boundaries in a Historical Perspective, edited by Amanat, Abbas and Vejdani, Farzin, 1–33. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amanat, Abbas. “Russian Intrusion into the Guarded Domain: Reflections of a Qajar Statesman on European Expansion.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113, no. 1 (1993): 35–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso, 2006.Google Scholar
Ansari, Ali M. “Taqizadeh and European Civilisation.” Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 54, no. 1 (2016): 47-58.Google Scholar
Ansari, Ali M. The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atabaki, Touraj. “Contesting Marginality: Ethnicity and the Construction of New Histories in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity, edited by Aghaie, Kamran Scot and Marashi, Afshin. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Atlas-e melli-ye Iran: Āmuzesh-e ʿumumi (National atlas of Iran: Public education). Tehran: National Office of Mapping, 1377/1998.Google Scholar
Bekhrad, Joobin. “The Book of Kings: The Book That Defines Iranians.” BBC Culture, August 16, 2018. bbc.com/culture/article/20180810-the-book-of-kings-the-book-that-defines-iranian.Google Scholar
Brumberg, Daniel and Farhi, Farideh, eds. Power and Change in Iran: Politics of Contention. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elling, R. C. Minorities in Iran: Nationalism and Ethnicity after Khomeini. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.10.1057/9781137047809CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fani, Aria. “Two Nations Find a Poet: Fitting Ferdowsi into Iran and Afghanistan's Literary Canons.” Ajam Media Collective, February 11, 2018. ajammc.com/2018/02/11/ferdowsi-iran-afghanistan.Google Scholar
Fani, Aria, and Schwartz, Kevin, “Persianate Pasts; National Presents: Persian Literary and Cultural Production in the Twentieth Century.” Iranian Studies 55, no. 3 (2022).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fārsi-ye aval-e dabestān (First-grade Persian). Tehran: Ministry of Education, 1358/1979; 1360/1981; 1361/1982; 1362/1983; 1363/1984; 1365/1986; 1366/1987; 1367/1988; 1368/1989; 1370/1991; 1371/1992; 1372/1993; 1373/1994; 1374/1995; 1378/1999; 1381/2002; 1382/2003; 1383/2004; 1386/2007; 1387/2008.Google Scholar
Fārsi-ye dovom-e dabestān (Second-grade Persian). Tehran: Ministry of Education, 1355/1976; 1358/1979; 1359/1980; 1360/1981; 1361/1982; 1365/1986; 1366/1987; 1367/1988; 1368/1988; 1369/1990; 1371/1992; 1376/1997; 1380/2001; 1382/2003; 1386/2007; 1387/2008.Google Scholar
Fārsi-ye sevom-e dabestān (Third-grade Persian). Tehran: Ministry of Education, 1355/1976; 1359/1980; 1362/1983; 1365/1986; 1366/1987; 1367/1988; 1375/1996; 1376/1997; 1381/2002; 1386/2007; 1387/2008.Google Scholar
Fārsi-ye chāhārom-e dabestān (Fourth-grade Persian). Tehran: Ministry of Education, 1355/1976.Google Scholar
Fārsi-ye panjom-e dabestān (Fifth-grade Persian). Tehran: Ministry of Education, 1355/1976.Google Scholar
Grigor, Talinn. Building Iran: Modernism, Architecture, and National Heritage under the Pahlavi Monarchs. New York: Periscope, 2009.Google Scholar
Groiss, Arnon. “Iranian Textbooks: Preparing Iran's Children for Global Jihad.” Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, 2007.Google Scholar
Higgins, Patricia J., and Shoar-Ghaffari, Pirouz. “Women's Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In In the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran, edited by Afkhami, Mahnaz and Friedl, Erika. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Inskeep, Steve. “Abolqasem Ferdowsi: The Poet Who Rescued Iran.” Morning Edition, National Public Radio, February 9, 2009. wnpr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100397309.Google Scholar
Iqbal, Abbas. Dowreh-ye tārikh-e ʿomumi. Tehran: Matba'eh-e Sa'adat, 1343/1924.Google Scholar
Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh. “Culture of Iranianness: The Evolving Polemic of Iranian Nationalism.” In Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics, edited by Keddie, Nikkie R. and Matthee, Rudi. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh. “Fragile Frontiers: The Diminishing Domains of Qajar Iran.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, no. 2 (1997): 205–34.Google Scholar
Khamanei, Ayatollah Ali. “Leader's Address to University Professors and Elite Academics.” Office of the Supreme Leader, October 13, 2005. english.khamenei.ir/news/75/Leader-s-Address-to-University-Professors-and-Elite-Academics.Google Scholar
Khamanei, Ayatollah Ali. “The Speech Made by His Excellency Ayatollah Khamanei on the Occasion of the First Anniversary of the Establishment of the SCCR (The First Seminar on Reviewing Dimensions of Expanding and Deepening the Cultural Revolution of Islam).” Secretariat of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, September 29, 2009.Google Scholar
Khamanei, Ayatollah Ali. “Tā che tasviram konand” (Reflections on how we can . . . selected remarks by the Leader about education). Accessed March 27, 2022, farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-content?id=8118.Google Scholar
Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah. Islam and Revolution: The Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini. Translated by Algar, Hamid. London: Kegan Paul, 2002.Google Scholar
Kia, Mana. Persianate Selves: Memories of Place and Origin before Nationalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kia, Mana, and Marashi, Afshin. “Introduction: After the Persianate.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 32, no. 2 (2016): 379–83.10.1215/1089201x-3698947CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Limbert, Mandana E. “Oman: Cultivating Good Citizens and Religious Virtue.” In Teaching Islam: Textbooks and Religion in the Middle East, edited by Doumato, Eleanor Abdella and Starrett, Gregory, 103–24. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007.Google Scholar
Malekzadeh, Shervin. “Schooled to Obey, Learning to Protest: The Ambiguous Outcomes of Postrevolutionary Schooling in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2011.Google Scholar
Malekzadeh, Shervin. “Children without Childhood, Adults without Adulthood: Changing Conceptions of the Iranian Child in Postrevolutionary Iranian Textbooks (1979–2008).” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 32, no. 2 (2012): 339–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malekzadeh, Shervin. “The New Business of Education in Iran.” Washington Post, August 19, 2015. washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/08/19/the-new-business-of-education-in-iran.Google Scholar
Malekzadeh, Shervin. “What Trump Doesn't Get about Ideology in Iran: It's Nationalism, not Theocracy.” Washington Post, June 25, 2018.Google Scholar
Marashi, Afshin. Nationalizing Iran: Culture, Power, and the State, 1870–1940. Seattle, WA:University of Washington Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Martin, Vanessa. Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of a New Iran. London: I. B. Tauris, 2003.Google Scholar
Matin-Asgari, Afshin. “The Berlin Circle: Iranian Nationalism Meets German Countermodernity.” In Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity, edited by Aghaie, Kamran Scot and Marashi, Afshin. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Matthee, Rudi. “Suspicion, Fear, and Admiration: Pre-Nineteenth-Century Iranian Views of the English and the Russians.” In Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics, edited by Keddie, Nikkie R. and Matthee, Rudi. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Mehran, Golnar, “The Presentation of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ in Postrevolutionary Iranian School Textbooks.” In Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics, edited by Keddie, Nikkie R. and Matthee, Rudi. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Mehran, Golnar. “Socialization of Schoolchildren in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Iranian Studies 22, no. 1 (1989): 35–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehran, Golnar. “The Socialization of Schoolchildren in the Islamic Republic of Iran: A Study of the Revolution in Values in Iranian Education.” PhD diss., University of California Los Angeles, 1988.Google Scholar
Menashri, David. Education and the Making of Modern Iran. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Mirfakhraie, Amir Hossein. “Curriculum Reform and Identity Politics in Iranian School Textbooks: National and Global Representations of ‘Race,’ Ethnicity, Social Class and Gender.” PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 2008. open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0055443.Google Scholar
Mirsepassi, Ali. Intellectual Discourse and the Politics of Modernization: Negotiating Modernity in Iran. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Moslem, Mehdi. Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Motahhari, Morteza. Khadamāt-e moteqābel-e Irān va Eslām (The contributions of Islam and Iran to each other). 12th ed., vol. 1. Tehran: Enteshārāt-e sadrā, 1985.Google Scholar
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “Concepts and Dilemmas of State Building in Fragile Situations: From Fragility to Resilience.” OECD Journal on Development 9, no. 3 (2008).Google Scholar
Paivandi, Saeed. Discrimination and Intolerance in Iran's Textbooks. Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2008.Google Scholar
Ram, Haggay. “The Immemorial Iranian Nation? School Textbooks and Historical Memory in Post-Revolutionary Iran.” Nations and Nationalism 6, no.1 (2000): 67–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rezaei, Mohammad. Tahlili az zendegi-ye ruzmarreh-ye dānesh āmuzeshi: Nāsāzihā-ye goftemān-e madreseh (An analysis of the daily lives of schoolchildren: The failures of school discourse). Tehran: Society and Culture, 2008.Google Scholar
Ringer, Monica. Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in Qajar Iran.Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2001.Google Scholar
Ringer, Monica. “Negotiating Modernity: Ulama and the Discourse of Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Iran.” In Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity, edited by Jahanbegloo, Ramin, Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2004.Google Scholar
Sādiq, Issā, ed., Ketāb-e hezāre-ye Ferdowsi (The millennium of Ferdowsi). Tehran: 1322/1943.Google Scholar
Salehi-Isfahani, Djavad. “Iranian Youth in Times of Economic Crisis,” Iranian Studies 44, no. 6 (2011): 789–806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salehi-Isfahani, Djavad. “Iran's Third Development Plan: A Reappraisal.” Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Economics, Blacksburg, VA, 2006.Google Scholar
Schirazi, Asghar. Irāniyat, melliyat, qowmiyat. Tehran: Jahān-e Ketāb, 1395/2016.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human ConditionHave Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Shams, Alex, Zarkar, Rustin, and Baghoolizadeh, Beeta. “Ferdowsi's Legacy: Examining Persian Nationalist Myths of the Shahnameh.” Ajam Media Collective, January 17, 2013. ajammc.com/2013/01/17/ferdowsis-legacy-examining-persian-nationalist-myths-of-the-shahnameh.Google Scholar
Shariati, Ali. Bāzshenāsi-e hoviat-e Irāni-Islāmi (The rediscovery of Iranian-Islamic identity). Tehran: Elham, 1371/2002.Google Scholar
Soleimani, Kamal, and Mohammadpour, Ahmad, “Can Non-Persians Speak? The Sovereign's Narration of ‘Iranian Identity.’” Ethnicities 19, no. 5 (2019): 925–47.10.1177/1468796819853059CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabaar, Mohammad Ayatollahi. Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vejdani, Farzin. Making History in Iran: Education, Nationalism, and Print Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Vejdani, Farzin. “The Place of Islam in Interwar Iranian Nationalist Historiography.” In Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity, edited by Aghaie, Kamran Scot and Marashi, Afshin. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Vu, Tuong. “Studying the State through State Formation.” World Politics 62, no. 1 (2010): 148–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zarrinkub, ʿAbdolhossein. Do qarn-e sokut (Two centuries of silence). Tehran: Amirkabir, 1957.Google Scholar
Zia-Ebrahimi, Reza. The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Zubaida, Sami. “The Ideological Preconditions for Khomeini's Doctrine of Government.” In Islam, the People and the State: Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East. London: I. B. Tauris, 2009.Google Scholar