Impact of Religious Factors on Educational Change in Iran: Islam in Policy and Islam in Practice

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Year:
Pages:292
ISBN:0-7734-5231-1
978-0-7734-5231-2
Price:$199.95 + shipping
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This book attempts to make sociological sense of the implications of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 for education in Iran in terms of ideological influences. Adapting Max Weber’s interpretive approach, it focuses on changing patterns of shared meanings and social relations in schools in one area of North West Iran.

Reviews

“The result of this focus on Islam, the modern state of Iran and education is a series of fresh insights into the cultural and social life of ordinary Iranians. These insights are all the more interesting for their departure from the practice that is widespread in the West these days of talking about Iran only in terms of allegations about its sponsorship of terrorism and its plans for nuclear weapons.” - Professor James A. Beckford, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, UK

“Godazgar’s access to teachers who have taught in the rural areas and familiarity with the institutional mechanism provides fresh insight in what has for long been seen in very one dimensional ways particularly by non-Persian speakers.” . . .In particular it sheds light on its effect on the daily lives of the less-privileged living and working away from the large cities.” - Professor Haleh Afshar, Department of Politics, University of York, UK

Until Dr Hossein’s book, no one has paid attention to the fact that the first serious and systemic effort to replace a secular educational system with a religious one took place in Iran after the Revolution. . . .This book will have important policy implications for those attempting to understand the nature of Islamic ideology and how it expands and reproduces itself in the Middle East.” - Professor Ali Akbar Mahdi, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio Wesleyan University

Table of Contents

List of Tables
Foreword by Professor James A. Beckford
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Max Weber, Modernity and Islam
2 Paths to Revolution
3 Theories of the Iranian Revolution and its Ideological Currents
4 History of Iranian Education before 1979
5 Post-1979 Re-organization of Education in Iran
6 Curriculum and Textbooks: the Islamic Factor
7 Gendered Social Interactions and Relationships
8 Teachers’ Responses to Educational Change
9 The New System of Education
Conclusions
Appendix
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

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