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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Iran is rare among developing societies, in the intensity of its dilemma resulting from efforts to effect a symbiosis between two divergent traditions--cultural continuity and technological, i.e., Western, innovation. As the Shah himself sees it, “we are both adjusting the technology to our culture and our culture to the technology.” But the “adjustment” proceeds, at best, haltingly with the result that neither of the traditions is especially vital, nor entirely relevant to Iran's political goals.
In no area of contemporary Iranian life can this be more tellingly demonstrated than that of education. Where the political leadership has made a firm commitment to social, political, and economic change, the educational sector is frequently among the first to reflect this commitment. But the ambiguities, contradictions, and ambivalences of Iran's political elite is reflected in the course of Iran's educational system.
The research on which this paper is based was carried out in Iran by the author from I963 to I965 and was supported by a Research Training Fellowship of the Social Science Research Council. Data analyzed and reported here were derived from interviews with 167 members of the Iranian political elite identified through a two-stage reputational analysis. I wish to thank those Iranians who so generously gave of their time, their knowledge, and their opinions, as well as Professor Frederick W. Frey, Department of Political Science, MIT; Mr. Frank Bamberger of the Computation Center, Department of Sociology. The University of Chicago, for their assistance in every phase of this work.
1 Reza Shah Pahlavi, H. I. M. Mohammed, Mission for my Country (New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, Inc., 1961), p. 132.Google Scholar
2 To translate this rather facile conceptualization into operational criteria and then into the actual names of individuals proved a laborious task. First, some thirty categories of professions, social roles, and government positions (doctors, tribal leaders, members of the Royal Family, Cabinet Ministers, etc.) were detailed. All the occupants of these categories (for periods going back to 1941 depending on the category) were identified, and with the elimination of overlaps and those who had passed away, a general elite of 3000 individuals was established. A panel of ten Iranians--reputed to be knowledgeable and honest--was formed. The members of the panel individually ranked the 3000 on the basis of their reputed political power. Arbitrarily, I set 10% or the top 300 of this list as the cutoff point to delineate the political elite from the general elite. This group of the 300 reportedly politically most powerful individuals then became the subject for intensive investigation.
3 In this sense, of course, present attitudes may well be a better indicator of future behavior than are present behaviors. A further complication is presented when the possibility is admitted that what one does at present may well influence and alter how one will feel in the future. Vide Rosenberg, Milton J., Hovland, Carl I., McGruse, William J., Abelson, Robert P., and Brehm, Jack, Attitude Organization and Change. An Analysis of Consistency Among Attitude Components (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), p. 213Google Scholar; and Bauer, Raymond A. and Bauer, Alice H., “America, Mass Society and Mass Media,” Journal of Social Issues,” Vol. 16 (1960), 30-31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society. Modernizing the Middle East (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1958), p. 73.Google Scholar
5 Ibid.
6 Statistics on expenditures from UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1964, Table 21. For enrollment ratios see UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1965, Table 9, pp. 117-129.
7 This statement must be qualified by the realization that one reason for the progressively diminishing class size is that the number of pupils entering the first grade of primary school has increased annually as the school system has been expanded. Nonetheless, we assume that a large proportion of the decline is attributable to the “dropout” problem.
8 Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Education, Educational Statistics in Iran (Tehran, Iran, 1967), Table 9, p. 37.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., p. 3.
10 Ministry of Education, Objectives and Resources of the Education Ministry of Iran (Tehran, 1965), p. 27.Google Scholar One concomitant has been the virtual neglect of vocational education at the secondary level, a condition which is changing with technical assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Army. Still, in the 1965-1966 academic year, only 16,293 (3%) of a total of 510,028 secondary school students were enrolled in vocational, commercial, agricultural, or teacher-training schools.
11 The actual statistics are for the secondary school students: 29,384 and 38,800; for the university students: 24,456 and 28,982. Data gathered from statistical handbooks of the Ministry of Education, 1964 and 1967.
12 Habib Naficy, “The ‘Brain-Drain’: The Case of Iranian Non-Returnees,” Society for International Development, March 17, 1966, mimeo., passim.
13 Fattahipour, Ahmad, “Educational Diffusion and the Modernization of an Ancient Civilization,” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, the University of Chicago, 1963, p. 72.Google Scholar
