Abstract
<p>Although Iran’s educational system is not secular in character, many Iranian parents prefer to send their children to private Islamic schools. It is widely assumed that such schools are more effective in socializing their students toward the Shiite worldview. To date, no known studies have been conducted to investigate the impacts of the Islamic schools’ formal and informal religious education on Iranian youths’ religious commitments and preferences. In short, this article focuses on how attending private Islamic schools in Iran impacts on the construction of students’ religious beliefs and attitudes. A qualitative, phenomenological methodology was employed with thirty former students of Islamic girl schools, aged 20 to 25 years old. Overall, the findings contrast somewhat with the existing literature by demonstrating that in most of our study participants, attending Islamic schools influenced future religious preferences and commitments by increasing unpleasant feelings and critical attitudes toward religion in general, and the Islamic-Shiite religious worldview specifically. </p>
Highlights
The Iranian educational system is not secular in character
Iran’s educational system is not secular in character, many Iranian parents prefer to send their children to private Islamic schools
This article focuses on how attending private Islamic schools in Iran impacts on the construction of students’ religious beliefs and attitudes
Summary
Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the country’s educational system has become the primary focus of the government’s Islamization project. As the most accessible socializing agency, schools provide a unique environment for the religious government of Iran to present their preferred Islamic values to post-revolutionary generations in a systematic manner. The main aim of the Islamization project is the creation of devout Muslims who are faithful to the ideal and cultural values of the established religious order and committed to the revolutionary values. The Iranian government has explicitly set Islamic education as its objective, which aims to familiarize students with Islamic beliefs, values, and rules. Studying religion (from the Islamic perspective), the Quran, and the Arabic language are compulsory in Iranian schools, alongside other subjects (Shorish, 1988; Godazgar, 2001)
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