Forlorn Arabs and Flying Americans: National Identity in the Early Childhood Curriculum of Postrevolutionary Iran, 1979–2009

Abstract

Drawing upon three decades of postrevolutionary textbooks, this article traces the development of the Arab Muslim as a recurring character in the early elementary curriculum of the Islamic Republic, set against the historical context of Iranian modernization and state formation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Sympathy for the Arab by the postrevolutionary state included a rebuke and an affirmation: Look at what has happened to the Arabs who were not able to defend their homes and their homeland, and look at what has not happened to us. Set against the Palestinian Arab figure are the accomplishments of American scientists and inventors who feature prominently in the postrevolutionary curriculum as sources of emulation for young readers. Star turns from Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Orville and Wilbur Wright invite a reconsideration of the role of the foreign Other in the construction of Iranian national identity, notably the expectation that the dispossessed constitute natural allies in Iran's ceaseless struggle against “the West.” Islamization of the primary school curriculum since 1979 has not come at the expense of Iranian national identity but as its expression, elucidating the ways postrevolutionary educational materials can serve as a repository for tracing the continuities and permutations in depicting the Arab or Western Other as well as different civilizational ethos of the Islamic and Persianate world across time.