Historical critique of Iran's formal education system and alternative voices; (1925-1941)

Iran is a country with high ethnic and cultural diversity. Various ethnic and cultural groups have lived together in this country's thousands of years of history. However, the arrival of modernity and the necessity of creating a nation-state disrupted this old order. At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, we witnessed a process of nation-state building accompanied by the imposition of Arianism on the national identity of Iranians and the marginalization of other cultural groups. At the same time, formal and modern education was established under Rıza Şah's rule and was used as an important arm of the government for cultural homogenization. The dominant discourse during this period advocated this idea, and the majority of elites and politicians wanted such a policy. There are opposing ideas and arguments against this cultural hegemony that are not given much importance. The current research attempts to understand these opposing and alternative propositions. To answer this question, we used the thematic analysis method and chose the journal Education and Training, one of the most important publications of that period, for our study. The analyzes show that in addition to the main discourse (cultural assimilation), there are also opposing ideas, albeit weaker, in the intellectual arena of the society. The difference between these two streams of thought is based on the understanding of modernity. The dominant discourse displays a mimetic attitude towards modernity and wants to import all material and spiritual components of modernity from the West. The opposite of this is the idea of creating modernity. In this understanding of modernity, the cultural diversity of society is considered one of the innate characteristics of society and can be defended as part of our modernity.