DEPENDENCY AND EDUCATION: AN ANALYSIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF IRANIAN EDUCATION SINCE WORLD WAR II

摘要

Utilizing the dependency theory, this study analyzes and interprets the development of Iranian education since World War II within the context of Iran's dependent capitalist development. The study addresses the following general issues: (1) how dependent capitalist development was reflected in the patterns of educational development in Iran after World War II; (2) what the economic, political, and cultural bases of the educational development were during this period; and (3) how the patterns of educational development contributed in maintaining the dependent capitalist development.;Providing an historical background the study characterizes the structural features of the traditional Iranian society which left the country vulnerable to Western penetration and to its consequent underdevelopment as a result of that penetration. The study presents the dynamics of Western penetration in Iran, the transformation of that society, and the country's increasing integration into the world capitalist system. In particular, it discusses the patterns of development planning, industrialization, and agricultural development, and analyzes the role of oil in the Iranian political economy. Finally, focusing on the role of education in the production and reproduction of a work force and in the social relations of production, the study analyzes the structural and functional relationships between the patterns of socioeconomic development of Iran and its educational expansion.;The study concludes that the Iranian Educational system has been fully integrated into the political economy of dependency; and that the Iranian patterns of educational planning, administration, and academic environment have been in tune with the Iranian social order and have supported the functioning of that social order and the structure of dependency. With regard to the autonomous national development of the society, contrariwise, this educational system has been dysfunctional. The dysfunctionality of the Iranian educational system in social, economic, political, and cultural progress has not been the result of inefficiencies in dependent development of the society, but rather the direct result of that development.