Analyzing the Position of the Student in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Educational Discourses: Educational Requirements and Contradictions in Justice-Oriented and Moderation-Oriented Governments
Keywords:
Demanding, moderation, Ministry of EducationAbstract
Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran has functioned as a central arena for the production and reproduction of meaning, identity, and social order, and has been continuously shaped by dominant political discourses. Within this context, the student is not merely an educational learner but a discursive subject whose position, role, and expectations are constantly reconstructed through shifting ideological frameworks. This article employs a discourse-analytic approach to comparatively examine the position of the student within two dominant post-revolutionary discourses: the justice-oriented government discourse and the moderation-oriented government discourse. The study is theoretically grounded in an understanding of the Islamic Revolution as a foundational discourse that established the overarching normative and educational framework of the Iranian education system. Using a qualitative and critical discourse analysis method, the research analyzes official educational documents, policy texts, and key governmental statements. The findings indicate that within the justice-oriented discourse, the student is primarily constructed as a revolutionary, committed, and ideal-oriented subject whose agency is expressed through ethical, ideological, and service-based forms of action. In contrast, the moderation-oriented discourse defines the student as a rights-aware, participatory, and development-oriented citizen in formation, emphasizing civic skills, rational engagement, and social participation. The comparative analysis reveals significant educational contradictions, including tensions between ideological justice and merit-based justice, jihadi activism and civic participation, and mission-oriented education versus development-oriented education. These contradictions contribute to identity instability within students’ educational experiences and highlight the need for a more coherent discursive framework in educational policy-making.
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