Making Education Anew : Schooling, Power Relations, and Resistance in Post 1979-Iran
Yazdani, Fatemeh LU
(2026)
In Lund studies in educational sciences
- Abstract
- Educational change is not simply a matter of reform. The political project of changing education may itself turn education into a site of struggle over what education should be, what kinds of human beings – and, by extension, what kind of society – it is expected to produce, and what futures it should make possible. This thesis explores the Iranian state’s policy project of changing education after the 1979 Revolution and the struggles surrounding it. It explores how change becomes thinkable, how particular ways of thinking about changing education come to dominate, and how change itself becomes a contested discourse, sometimes mobilized to narrow educational imaginaries, and sometimes to reopen them. The thesis aims to make visible the... (More)
- Educational change is not simply a matter of reform. The political project of changing education may itself turn education into a site of struggle over what education should be, what kinds of human beings – and, by extension, what kind of society – it is expected to produce, and what futures it should make possible. This thesis explores the Iranian state’s policy project of changing education after the 1979 Revolution and the struggles surrounding it. It explores how change becomes thinkable, how particular ways of thinking about changing education come to dominate, and how change itself becomes a contested discourse, sometimes mobilized to narrow educational imaginaries, and sometimes to reopen them. The thesis aims to make visible the enduring entanglement of power relations and resistance in education.
The study is theoretically and methodologically grounded in Foucauldian post-structuralism and guided by the approach of What’s the Problem Represented to Be? (WPR). Empirically, it traces problematizations of education through three analytical cuts, drawing on diverse sources ranging from policy texts and press archives to social media content. This range of material enables the analysis to attend to specific moments, texts, and practices through which the possibilities of schooling are made and remade.
First, policy problematizations of education are examined, with particular attention to the Fundamental Reform Document of Education (FRDE), an overarching policy text in Iranian education system. The FRDE is itself proposed as the solution to the represented problem of subjectification. In this framing, education is assigned a dense moral and political mission: to produce a kind of human being who aligns with the state-sanctioned utopian imaginary of society. Second, an analysis of press representations of education during the early stages of the 1979 Revolution brings to light the practices, processes, and events through which one way of thinking about education and changing it came to dominate, while rendering competing problematizations marginalized or subjugated. Third, the thesis explores student resistance during the Women, Life, Freedom movement following September 2022. It conceptualizes resistance as forms of counter-conduct that contested the dominant problematizations of education, opening a space for alternative forms of schooling to emerge.
Building on these analyses, the thesis conceptualizes the revolutionization of education as a governing rationality underpinning the post-1979 schooling. This rationality is characterized by a constitutive paradox: while it promises the possibility of fundamental change in education through a paradigm shift, it simultaneously constrains that possibility by limiting legitimate imaginaries of futures to those aligned with the state’s political project. The thesis offers empirical, conceptual, and methodological resources for analysing schooling as a contested site of governing.
(Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/35ee33c6-cb6a-4524-adf0-83d20660a7c9
- author
- Yazdani, Fatemeh
LU
- supervisor
- opponent
-
- Docent Carlbaum, Sara, Umeå universitet
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026-09-24
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Education policy, Iran, Post-1979 schooling, power relations, student resistance, governing, problematization, WPR, discourse analysis, social movement, social media, press archive, Foucauldian post-structuralism
- in
- Lund studies in educational sciences
- issue
- 27
- pages
- 200 pages
- publisher
- Department of Educational Sciences, Lund University
- defense location
- sal C:121, LUX, Helgonavägen 3, Lund.
- defense date
- 2026-10-23 13:15:00
- ISSN
- 2002-6323
- ISBN
- 978-91-90206-12-6
- 978-91-90206-11-9
- project
- Making Education Anew: Schooling, Power Relations, and Resistance in Post-1979 Iran
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 35ee33c6-cb6a-4524-adf0-83d20660a7c9
- date added to LUP
- 2026-09-24 11:41:33
- date last changed
- 2026-09-25 11:59:39
@phdthesis{35ee33c6-cb6a-4524-adf0-83d20660a7c9,
abstract = {{Educational change is not simply a matter of reform. The political project of changing education may itself turn education into a site of struggle over what education should be, what kinds of human beings – and, by extension, what kind of society – it is expected to produce, and what futures it should make possible. This thesis explores the Iranian state’s policy project of changing education after the 1979 Revolution and the struggles surrounding it. It explores how change becomes thinkable, how particular ways of thinking about changing education come to dominate, and how change itself becomes a contested discourse, sometimes mobilized to narrow educational imaginaries, and sometimes to reopen them. The thesis aims to make visible the enduring entanglement of power relations and resistance in education. <br/>The study is theoretically and methodologically grounded in Foucauldian post-structuralism and guided by the approach of What’s the Problem Represented to Be? (WPR). Empirically, it traces problematizations of education through three analytical cuts, drawing on diverse sources ranging from policy texts and press archives to social media content. This range of material enables the analysis to attend to specific moments, texts, and practices through which the possibilities of schooling are made and remade.<br/>First, policy problematizations of education are examined, with particular attention to the Fundamental Reform Document of Education (FRDE), an overarching policy text in Iranian education system. The FRDE is itself proposed as the solution to the represented problem of subjectification. In this framing, education is assigned a dense moral and political mission: to produce a kind of human being who aligns with the state-sanctioned utopian imaginary of society. Second, an analysis of press representations of education during the early stages of the 1979 Revolution brings to light the practices, processes, and events through which one way of thinking about education and changing it came to dominate, while rendering competing problematizations marginalized or subjugated. Third, the thesis explores student resistance during the Women, Life, Freedom movement following September 2022. It conceptualizes resistance as forms of counter-conduct that contested the dominant problematizations of education, opening a space for alternative forms of schooling to emerge.<br/>Building on these analyses, the thesis conceptualizes the revolutionization of education as a governing rationality underpinning the post-1979 schooling. This rationality is characterized by a constitutive paradox: while it promises the possibility of fundamental change in education through a paradigm shift, it simultaneously constrains that possibility by limiting legitimate imaginaries of futures to those aligned with the state’s political project. The thesis offers empirical, conceptual, and methodological resources for analysing schooling as a contested site of governing.<br/>}},
author = {{Yazdani, Fatemeh}},
isbn = {{978-91-90206-12-6}},
issn = {{2002-6323}},
keywords = {{Education policy; Iran; Post-1979 schooling; power relations; student resistance; governing; problematization; WPR; discourse analysis; social movement; social media; press archive; Foucauldian post-structuralism}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{09}},
number = {{27}},
publisher = {{Department of Educational Sciences, Lund University}},
school = {{Lund University}},
series = {{Lund studies in educational sciences}},
title = {{Making Education Anew : Schooling, Power Relations, and Resistance in Post 1979-Iran}},
year = {{2026}},
}