Forlorn Arabs and Flying Americans
National Identity in the Early Childhood Curriculum of Postrevolutionary Iran, 1979–2009
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9978036 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shervin Malekzadeh (Colgate University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 741-764 |
| Publication date | 2022-07-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Iranian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-0862 • E-ISSN: 1475-4819 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/irn.2022.30 |
| OpenAlex | W4285404245 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 24 |
Drawing upon three decades of postrevolutionary textbooks, this article traces the development of the Arab Muslim as a recurring character in the early elementary curriculum of the Islamic Republic, set against the historical context of Iranian modernization and state formation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Sympathy for the Arab by the postrevolutionary state included a rebuke and an affirmation: Look at what has happened to the Arabs who were not able to defend their homes and their homeland, and look at what has not happened to us. Set against the Palestinian Arab figure are the accomplishments of American scientists and inventors who feature prominently in the postrevolutionary curriculum as sources of emulation for young readers. Star turns from Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Orville and Wilbur Wright invite a reconsideration of the role of the foreign Other in the construction of Iranian national identity, notably the expectation that the dispossessed constitute natural allies in Iran's ceaseless struggle against “the West.” Islamization of the primary school curriculum since 1979 has not come at the expense of Iranian national identity but as its expression, elucidating the ways postrevolutionary educational materials can serve as a repository for tracing the continuities and permutations in depicting the Arab or Western Other as well as different civilizational ethos of the Islamic and Persianate world across time
Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Homeland · Identity (music · Islam · Modernization theory · National identity · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · African history and culture analysis · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Political theory and Gramsci
Iran Facing Others
Minorities in Iran
Religious Statecraft
Persianate Selves
Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity
Intellectual Discourse and the Politics of Modernization
The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran
The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism
Power and Change in Iran
Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in Qajar Iran
Children without Childhood, Adults without Adulthood
Taqizadeh and European Civilisation
Socialization of Schoolchildren in the Islamic Republic of Iran
Persianate Pasts; National Presents
Iranian Youth in Times of Economic Crisis
Education and the Making of Modern Iran
Fragile Frontiers
Russian Intrusion into the Guarded Domain
Imagined communities
Studying the State through State Formation
The Immemorial Iranian Nation? School Textbooks and Historical Memory in Post‐Revolutionary Iran
Can non-Persians speak? The sovereign’s narration of “Iranian identity
Seeing Like a State
| Highly cited | No |
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