redirecting islamic humanities in iran

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


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.


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.


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.


This thesis is dedicated to my beloved parents

for their immense help and support


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


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


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.


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.


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


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


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.


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,


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.


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


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).


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


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


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).


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.


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.


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,


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


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.


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.


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.


“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


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.


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


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)


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.


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.


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.


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


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)


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.


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


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


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).


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 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)




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 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


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.


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



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


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


p. 67

Table 10 Examples of Relevant Pictures in the New Textbooks


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


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


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.


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.


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


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


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


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


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


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.


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


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.


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


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.


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


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.


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


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.


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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?


§ 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


§ 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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


o First Revolution o Islamic Movements and Revolutions o Cultural Geography of the New World


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

redirecting islamic humanities in iran

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