مطالب

Culture is an indispensable part of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP), especially in English Language Teaching (ELT). In addition, the spread of English around the globe has resulted in English users’ tendency to embed their local culture in their English communication (Kirkpatrick, 2012). However, literature remains silent on culture representation in FLEP, especially in an ideologized country like Iran. To address this issue, due to lack of an explicit FLEP in Iran, the present study analyzed the cultural schemas addressed in the seven major national policy documents of Iran, namely 20-year National Vision, Comprehensive Science Roadmap, Support for Comprehensive Science Roadmap in the Domain of Languages, Cultural Engineering Document, National Curriculum, Fundamental Reform in Education, and Islamicization of Universities. Results of content analysis using MAXQDA Software unmasked Islamic-Iranian culture as the baseline for ELT in Iran. In order to further examine the representations and implications of ‘Islamic-Iranian culture’ hidden in the documents, open coding, axial coding, and labeling along with constant comparative procedure revealed various Islamic cultural schemas. However, very few instances of Iranian cultural schemas were unveiled. The findings were discussed in light of the hidden curriculum and the power relations behind the extracted cultural schemas

Socio-cultural diversity is a comprehensive phenomenon across the world so that there are only a few monoethnical countries. Every country attempts to plan its policy to manage its ethnical diversity on one hand according to goals and approaches of its political system and on the other hand according to its specific ethnical diversity pattern. The Islamic Republic of Iran also is among countries with ethnical diversity and attempts to administrate its policy according to its political system approach toward ethnical diversity and the features of that diversity. In this paper it was tried to represent some socio-cultural suggestions, employing the positive experiences of countries with ethnical diversity and regarding opportunity-based approach of the Islamic Republic of Iran toward ethnical diversity and recommendations of the leaders of the revolution. The research method used here is a combination of documentary method with studying of resources and available studies, formation of elites’ panel, interviewing with elites. Also Smith’s general policy making model was used in the process.

Today, there is a plethora of literature on the process of accelerating growth of science and technology in Iran. Assuming technology as a social construct of modern society, and in the light of Ricoeurian hermeneutic approach, this paper aims, first, to show the resemblance of the current discursive relationship between the Iranian society and technology to a "discourse of faith" and, second to explain how this discourse has roots in the preceding one which can be considered as a "discourse of suspicion". To do so, the paper first, builds a conceptual model based on the Ricoeurian theory of interpretation, where, by analogy, modern technology is compared to the text and the user of the technology as its reader. Then, it introduces two episodes of relationship between technology and its Iranian users in the public policy of the post-revolutionary era: distanciation and appropriation. It concludes that the current growth of scientific endeavors serves as the material base for an Iranian discourse of techno-nationalism; a new self-identification which motivates the elites to develop new bases for national self-esteem.

The grounded theory and structural analysis were employed in this study to propose an optimal policy model for cultural organizations at Iran’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts, and Tourism in the dimensions of flexibility, ethical appropriateness, and organizational benefit. This is a fundamental study with exploratory research designs. The statistical population of the qualitative section includes all faculty members, professors, and managers, whereas that of the quantitative section includes all the second-rate managers and employees of Iran’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage Data collection tools were interviews and questionnaires. According to the research findings, the optimal policy model for cultural organizations had a positive effect on flexibility. also had a positive effect on ethical appropriateness, through the grounded theory and structural analysis at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism. Finally, it had a positive effect on organizational benefit through the grounded theory and structural analysis at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts, and Tourism.

Changes in the structure of the global single-polar system and the transition towards a multi-polar order highlight the new norms of the global order. It is clear that the dominance of the new normative order and the elements of the new structural meaning are primarily considering the decline of US hegemony and its redistribution among new poles. These conditions create more space for the expression of competing cultural ideologies. In such a space, there are ample opportunities for culturally and civilizational rich actors like Iran to emerge. The importance of this issue becomes more apparent when we realize that key players in the new structure, such as China, lack the high capacity to confront Western cultural-hegemonic dominance regarding the absence of modern software. In an era where the main characteristic is "Power Dispersion," some of the material shortcomings of the Islamic Republic of Iran can be remedied to play an effective role in the new era of cultural power vacuum, if attention is paid to its software capacities. Therefore, the main question of this research is formed by examining what software-based priorities for the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards the cultural Iran region suggest. In response to this question, with a descriptive-analytical approach by gathering a library of data, highlighting the coordinates of the new global order, and examining the coordinates of the cultural Iran region. The main recommendations of this new situation for the foreign policy of I.R.I in the cultural Iran region are explored. The results indicated that the framework of this software capacity can be explained in three dimensions: culture, values, and foreign policy. This capacity has gained a particular significance in connection with the concept of the Islamic Revolution and the opportunities it has created.

The purpose of this study is to identify the roots of cultural policy making in the IRI. Having a historical approach this article has used a thematic content analysis with a “content coding technique” to review the works of three Islamic revolutionary scholars whose views have been frequent reference to many cultural policy makers before and after the revolution. In this regard there have been “thirty headlines” identified as policy making headings which are divided into: ten headlines from Ali Shariati’s book called “Returns”, eight headlines from "The Future of the Islamic Revolution" a book by Morteza Motahari, and twelve headlines from a series of Seyyed Ahmad Fardid’s lectures, titled as "Hereafter Conquest and Meetings of Farahi". According to the results of this research, the sharing feature of these three views, albeit from different origins of ideas, is the two following lines "Confrontation with Being Westernized" and "the Priority of Reform, and the Development of Thought and Culture". Another result of this research indicates the influence of the document "Principles of cultural policy of the country" through the views of these scholars. At the end of this article, it is claimed that the Islamic Republic of Iran's cultural policies, both elective and compound, are rooted in the cultural theorists of the revolution, and it cannot be accepted that the Islamic Republic of Iran, in its forty-year lifetime, departed from the first designed cultural principles. It is a form of early thought that has been recognized and formed as normal