ABSTRACT
Education became a critical site to advance the Islamization of Iran following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Gradually taking shape through a number of reforms and phases that began with the Cultural Revolution (1980–1982), which aimed to return Shi’ite doctrine to Iranian schools, the newly established Islamic Republic utilized education as part and parcel to its sociopolitical endeavor of accelerating its ideological and religious reforms. Meanwhile, it was simultaneously expanding education as a means of socializing students with the intention of producing an Islamic society of law-abiding and devoted Muslims (Ashraf, 1997; Mehran, 1990; Paivandi, 2006, 2012; Shorish, 1988). With the adoption of the first major education law in 1987, 1 an important step toward the institutionalization of reforms was undertaken. The law underlines the importance of the idea of a return to the substance of Islam and the Koran that “is always absolutely true and valid for all times and in all places” (Paivandi, 2006, p. 8). Emphasizing an ideological framework based largely on the principles and laws of Shi’ite Islam, the law contended that schools must uphold the “sacred” mission of helping shape new pious Muslims and virtuous believers in the service of their Islamic society; where purification was to take precedence over formal education (Safi, 2000). Outlining 14 main objectives of the Iranian education system, nine of them directly addressed religious, ideological, and ethical matters and specified the role that education and school curriculum must play in ensuring student’s adherence to the Islamic Revolution and Islamic virtues (Paivandi, 2006; Safi, 2000). With the return of religious education to Iranian schools and the Islamization of Iranian society, the revision and restructuring of gender norms and relations between the sexes simultaneously became Islamized and altered, which the new Iranian education system reflected and helped accelerate.
