CONCLUSION
Background According to Freedom House (2007),[1] a non-partisan non-profit research organization, 23 percent of the world’s countries are not free and only 30 percent are partially free. In other words, the majority (52 percent) of the world’s countries still manifest some form of authoritarian practice and policy, from mild to extreme (Freedom House, 2008). Adopting conflict theories of education, I argued that general authoritarianism and regime repression is almost always manifested in educational curriculum and space. I maintain that this directly and indirectly bears on the educational goals of targeted segments of a state’s population.
One of the important reasons to study the role of political contention in education is the simple fact that people generally feel they have an implicit right to education per se. What happens when that perceived right is removed or distorted? Is the threat of losing other rights and privileges, or even of fierce repression, enough to stop mobilization, as some of the literature implies? Do groups accept, tolerate, resist, or reject imposed educational policies that affect the educational goals of minority groups? These questions reflect how desperately this area calls for closer analysis to broaden our understanding of how minorities function educationally in the majority of the world’s countries which are either partially or not free. This dissertation is an empirical, theoretical, and methodological contribution toward filling this gap.
The objective of this dissertation was straight forward: to explain how religious minorities in Iran meet educational needs under autocratic regimes, and to account for significant causal factors for the selection of particular strategies. However, without considerably more attention to the underlying reasons, it would have been easy to fall into the trap of producing yet another descriptive response without explanation. While the Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i communities may have selected similar and different educational strategies at various points, convergence and divergence in educational strategies have been not discussed elsewhere, and thus this dissertation is a pioneering contribution by addressing this important topic. Moreover, in this dissertation I essentially accomplished three things: (a) I accounted for, what I define as, educational strategies in the context of streams and episodes of contention and actuation using my propositional framework; (b) I explained how and why strategies selected by each group resulted from variations in the group’s composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations; and finally, (c) using my education opportunity dynamic framework, I demonstrated that identifying mechanisms and processes shows us not only how educational strategies were formed, but also why they were selected.
In the process of answering the research question, I developed theoretical and methodological tools which I believe contribute to the body of literature from which I drew theoretical and analytical considerations. For example, one of these developments is the propositional framework of group features as causal rather than conditional elements in influencing educational strategies. Another enhancement was the development of the educational opportunity dynamic to explain the relational dynamic of group features with each other, within the broader processes of framing, political opportunity structures, and resource mobilization.
Highlighted Findings In looking at three different religious minority groups under two different regimes spanning 85 years, I was able to (a) identify educational strategies, (b) explain those strategies by looking at mechanisms and processes within segmented streams and episodes of educational contention and actuation, and (c) illustrate the extent to which group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations bore on the formation, selection, deployment, and outcome of those strategies. Thus, by including the propositions of group features in my analysis using the educational opportunity dynamic, I provided a more specific understanding of essential initiatives and responses of the three groups in meeting their educational goals and needs. I highlight some of the key findings below using the categorization of the group features. Following the review of findings, I provide an overview of the educational strategies which I organize into coherent categories for each group and period, as shown in Table 1 below.
Composition and Characteristics As I initially proposed, the demographics of the groups evidently determined the types and extent of internal resources available to each group to mobilize education efforts, and indicated the extent of the pool of resources to draw from. The initial strategies to seek out modern schooling significantly increased the socioeconomic status of the Jewish and Baha’i communities, and noticeably increased the status of Christians. By developing a new middle and upper class in society, not only did resources increase in quantity, but their quality improved. This finding illustrates what I refer to as the bi-cycle effect, in which group features not only affect strategies, but educational strategies significantly effect group compositions. Subsequently, I found that boundary shift in composition and characteristics also influenced the ideological orientation of groups. Ideological orientation shed light on underlying motives and goals for educational pursuits, and influenced how education and educational opportunities were framed, their importance to each group, and the risks worth taking to obtain them. I also discovered that boundary shift in ideological orientation also defined what strategies were desirable, acceptable, or unacceptable, including the extent to which groups would tolerate regime impositions and demands before engaging in contained contention or escalating claims into transgressive contention. I found that one of the central instruments for educational strategy development and deployment was pre-existing preference structures, including the groups’ leadership and organizational structures. As I argued throughout the chapters on group features and educational strategies, organizational structure created the coalitions and basis for collective action needed to carry out educational strategies, but also determined how strategies were brokered and diffused, how they were framed, and the kinds of networks that existed for the community. I further argue that community unity mattered in the operation of educational initiatives and the formation of educational strategies: that is, sectarian divisions caused significant obstacles, and when cultural diversity overrode community commonality, the deployment of educational strategies was negatively affected.
Networks My analysis shows that the three religious communities all relied, to one degree or another, on domestic and international networks in forming and selecting educational strategies. I argue that without international networks, community-based modern schooling initiatives would not have proliferated as they did. I suggest that organizational ties and common community characteristics determined how collaboration between domestic community groups and their transnational counterparts materialized. Groups which had hierarchical organizational structures, I contend, were able to benefit from centralized leadership to coordinate strategies on an international level, including mobilization of resources, framing of situations, and acting globally in the interest of domestic group communities. I maintain that network ties with transnational communities not only made it possible to import educational models, but allowed for exchange of cultural capital, opportunities to study abroad, or use the exit strategy when opportunities were blocked in Iran. Similarly, through my analysis I found that networks were used to strengthen identities through boundary activation, and reinforce group loyalties in the process of seeking education opportunities. In some cases, sectarian agendas varied or often conflicted, which I argue weakened ties or eliminated them across denominations. When groups had strong ties with transnational communities, another consideration, indirect ties, became important. When groups had strong transnational community ties, and those transnational communities had moderate to strong ties with other governmental and nongovernmental organizations, I show how collective action, particularly for advocacy, was a significant factor in educational strategies in the face of educational repression. I argue that while networks increased during the Pahlavi era, they decreased for those groups that were institutionalized during the Islamic Republic because of the influence of state-state relations with those countries that hosted the groups’ transnational communities.
Regime-Group Relations The study of regime-group relations confirmed ideas about political opportunity structure affecting the amount and kind of resources available for mobilization and collective action. I found that when the government was tolerant of group educational strategies, communities were more able to meet their goals, whether through innovation, integration, or isolation. During the second epoch of the Pahlavi era, I argue that facilitation and increased opportunities for religious minorities caused the Jewish and Baha’i communities to integrate into the state educational system and, to some extent, led to a reduction of activation or prominent boundaries. This may seem counter intuitive, but as I explain, it was the result of the ideological orientation of the communities to distinguish between religious and national identity, and thus integrate into the national body of the country. Conversely, I found that Christian ethnic communities, took advantage of regime leniency and continued with their deliberately insular educational strategy. However, during both regimes, when repression increased, I illustrated using the concepts laid out in my educational opportunity dynamic that groups responded differently, based not only on their characteristics and networks, but also in consideration of their standing with the regime. Government recognition status gave certain special educational rights to religious minorities, but I contend that it also officially gave rise to a distinct and polarized us-and-them relationship. Moreover, I argue that not being legally recognized had its disadvantages when groups faced incongruence between special community features and regime demands. I found that having a recognized representative in Parliament—constituting institutionalization—gave the respective communities (Jewish and Christian) the opportunity to make contentious claims regarding educational rights. I argue that by institutionalizing, and thus partially aligning with the regime agenda, state-state international relations bore on regime-group relations as well. For example, in cases where the Islamic Republic severed relations with the United States, Britain, and Israel, so, too, did the Jewish and Christian communities break formal ties with their sister communities in those communities, leading, in turn, to demobilization of resources, defection, and fragmentation of transnational community ties. The Baha’is, on the other hand, being officially unrecognized—and therefore not institutionalized as a community body—had the most restricted opportunity structure. I suggest that because they had no legal status or standing to lose, they were able to engage in more innovative and bold educational undertakings when no other alternatives were open to them.
Table 1
Prominent Educational Strategies by Group and Regime Period
Theoretical and Methodological Contributions In explaining educational strategy selection of religious minorities in Iran, I drew from three different fields of study: (a) conflict and critical theories of education, (b) social movement and contentious politics literature, and (c) international relations theories on internationalization, globalization and transnational movements. The integration of these three is an uncommon enterprise, probably because the fields have very little interaction, and often their theoretical considerations remain isolated within each field of study. By integrating concepts the three bodies of literature in this study, I have more adequately addressed the questions posed in this dissertation by accounting for reasons for educational repression, group responses and strategies in meeting education needs, and how international networks and relations influences group and regime features and decisions.
In the field of comparative and international education, the contentious politics approach is an absent but indispensable tool of analysis in understanding causal factors for selection of specific education strategy. It provides the basis for understanding why and how regimes use education to meet personal agenda and control their populations. Likewise, the study of international relations can contribute further to our understanding of transnational networks and the impact of internationalization on educational movements in repressive societies, particularly how human rights norms and regimes are used in furthering educational rights of minority groups—as I have done in this dissertation. In future studies within political sociology and international relations, the empirical use of cases subjects and episodes related to education would help to analyze and better understand political processes involving the interactions between regimes and groups; I maintain that education is and will probably remain one of the single most important spaces of contention between authoritarian regimes and groups in the state.
I enhanced the explanatory aspects of the theories further by employing three propositions identifying proposed causal factors in educational strategy selection: group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations. While other studies have focused on each of these in isolation, I looked at their dynamic combination in influencing educational strategy selection. My findings not only support these suppositions as important considerations in future studies on strategy selection by groups, but also indicate that adopted strategies affect group features. Within the construct of my educational opportunity dynamic model, I proposed a unique way of understanding the overarching processes and outcomes that shaped strategy selection: namely, the bi-cycle effect. This bi-cycle effect illustrates how group features affect strategies, but also how strategies in turn affect features. Taken together, they account for a more agent-centric approach to studying educational movements of minority groups.
While the literature on conflict theories helps explain the regime side of educational repression, most theories inadequately explains how groups cope and counter such strategies in constructive and meaningful ways. My inclusion of contentious politics literature helps enhance this neglected aspect of the contentious relationship between regimes and groups. It lays the foundation for theoretical considerations of what might be suitably referred to a topical sub-field of contentious politics of educational equity.
The importance of international relations theories helped establish the grounds for understanding the impact of international and transnational networks, as well as human rights norms in influencing both regime and group behaviour associated with educational agendas. I believe that by including the considerations of processes and mechanisms to explain how strategies materialized was another important contribution this dissertation made to the field.
The use of episodes and streams, as well as mechanisms and process was the foundation of this research enterprise. I included the consideration of my propositions within the interplay of political opportunity structures, framing, and resources, and called this more sophisticated modeling of conditional and causal factors the educational opportunity dynamic. This more nuanced conceptual modeling was the vehicle by which episodes of educational contention and actuation were analyzed for explaining strategy selection. Future undertakings that set out to explain educational strategy selection of specific groups may consider the steps developed in this dissertation as a generalizable analytical framework through which other cases in various regimes may be studied (see Table 2).
Table 2
Steps in Researching Educational Strategy Selection
Reflecting on the Past and Looking Forward Significance of the Study This dissertation should be of particular interest to those who study educational inequity. The literature is heavily weighted toward studying the effects of regime repression, as well as issues related to the disparities of accessibility and quality. This dissertation has broken from this emphasis, and, instead, provides a fresh perspective on how groups respond to such contentious interactions. Empirically, it has effectively assessed a large and disparate body of primary and secondary sources, sifted them for quality, and examined comprehensively the features that go into strategy selection. It has also integrated relatively disconnected literature and recasts them into a modified theoretical and methodological framework that may be used by scholars in comparative education, political sociology, and international relations in looking at regime-group interactions and the formation and selection of educational strategies. Therefore, this work represents a substantial source for others who undertake a study of Jews, Christians, and Baha’is in Iran. More importantly, this dissertation is a foundation for future studies on educational strategy selection, educational inequity, and group education movements and resistance.
The study should also be of interest to those involved in educational policy—particularly those advocating for educational rights—because it highlights how processes are affected by regime-group relations as well as international and supranational networks. For example, it provides onlookers with actual strategies that are selected, how those strategies play out, and how future strategies may help facilitate increased educational opportunities while not being of detriment to the community. Finally, scholars in the field of comparative education would benefit from the incorporation of methods drawn from social movement and contentious politics studies to provide explanations for phenomena which remain unexamined.
Contributions of the Study This dissertation, for the first time, provides a monographic multi-case study of religious minorities in Iran and their educational strategies. It is likely that previous attempts were not made because of the disparate body of literature available. I believe that the integration and organization of modified theories and methods used and developed in this dissertation allowed me to not only provide empirically sound analysis, but also enabled me to produce a theoretical and methodologically contribution to the fields of comparative and international education, political sociology, and international relations. This comparative study charters an unexplored area in the field of comparative and international education, namely, the casual factors for minority group educational strategy selection in authoritarian settings. It categorizes groups according to an innovative classification of features. The application of historical analysis using the mechanism-process approach in tracing the effects of group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations on strategy selection is a departure from isolated and descriptive case studies. The concept of educational strategies itself is understudied, and I am confident that this dissertation sheds light on dimensions of strategy selection which have not previously been considered or studied, and provides the fundamental theoretical and methodological tools to do so.
Methodological Enhancements and Future Research In undertaking this study of three religious minority groups over two regimes and 85 years, it became evident that each one of these cases could have constituted a study on its own. Nonetheless, it was precisely the comparative nature of this dissertation that provided insights into the bearing of variations in group features on educational strategy selection. However, some additional enhancements may have contributed to the study. First, a proper network analysis may have provided more substantial grounding for considering its effect on educational strategy selection. While beyond the scope of this dissertation, future studies could take up an exclusively comparative analysis of the effects of networks on educational strategies, primarily how resources and advocacy play a role in claiming educational rights and securing opportunities. Second, access to more sources in different languages would have provided greater empirical leverage in studying Armenian and Assyrian sources, as well as accessing archival sources in Hebrew and French. Most noticeable is the absence of the Zoroastrian religious minority in this study. While I have explained the technical reasons for their exclusion elsewhere, their inclusion in a future empirical analysis would be a worthy undertaking.
Future research could certainly build on the research design used in this study, by refining the methods of analysis. Smaller research projects could take up segments of this study for more in-depth examination, such as the different types framing processes in developing educational strategies, or the role of human rights regimes in determining state educational policies, and so forth. However, the robustness of the content and the range of elements prevented greater elaboration of certain concepts and particular issues. Future studies can focus on specific phenomena and interpretations put forward in this dissertation, such as the advantages and disadvantages of regime recognition and representation in selecting and deploying educational strategies. It would be interesting to focus on how institutionalization causes limitations in educational strategy selection, and conversely how non-institutionalization results sometimes in bolder initiatives. This study has opened the way for multiple research explorations, and supports efforts to research agent-centered topics in educational equity studies. In the final analysis, I believe this dissertation is a pioneering work for future studies on the contentious politics of education.
[1] Freedom House uses a four part matrix covering four areas which they equate in the aggregate with freedom: (1) accountability and public voice; (2) civil liberties; (3) rule of law; and (4) anticorruption and transparency.
One of the important reasons to study the role of political contention in education is the simple fact that people generally feel they have an implicit right to education per se. What happens when that perceived right is removed or distorted? Is the threat of losing other rights and privileges, or even of fierce repression, enough to stop mobilization, as some of the literature implies? Do groups accept, tolerate, resist, or reject imposed educational policies that affect the educational goals of minority groups? These questions reflect how desperately this area calls for closer analysis to broaden our understanding of how minorities function educationally in the majority of the world’s countries which are either partially or not free. This dissertation is an empirical, theoretical, and methodological contribution toward filling this gap.
The objective of this dissertation was straight forward: to explain how religious minorities in Iran meet educational needs under autocratic regimes, and to account for significant causal factors for the selection of particular strategies. However, without considerably more attention to the underlying reasons, it would have been easy to fall into the trap of producing yet another descriptive response without explanation. While the Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i communities may have selected similar and different educational strategies at various points, convergence and divergence in educational strategies have been not discussed elsewhere, and thus this dissertation is a pioneering contribution by addressing this important topic. Moreover, in this dissertation I essentially accomplished three things: (a) I accounted for, what I define as, educational strategies in the context of streams and episodes of contention and actuation using my propositional framework; (b) I explained how and why strategies selected by each group resulted from variations in the group’s composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations; and finally, (c) using my education opportunity dynamic framework, I demonstrated that identifying mechanisms and processes shows us not only how educational strategies were formed, but also why they were selected.
In the process of answering the research question, I developed theoretical and methodological tools which I believe contribute to the body of literature from which I drew theoretical and analytical considerations. For example, one of these developments is the propositional framework of group features as causal rather than conditional elements in influencing educational strategies. Another enhancement was the development of the educational opportunity dynamic to explain the relational dynamic of group features with each other, within the broader processes of framing, political opportunity structures, and resource mobilization.
Highlighted Findings In looking at three different religious minority groups under two different regimes spanning 85 years, I was able to (a) identify educational strategies, (b) explain those strategies by looking at mechanisms and processes within segmented streams and episodes of educational contention and actuation, and (c) illustrate the extent to which group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations bore on the formation, selection, deployment, and outcome of those strategies. Thus, by including the propositions of group features in my analysis using the educational opportunity dynamic, I provided a more specific understanding of essential initiatives and responses of the three groups in meeting their educational goals and needs. I highlight some of the key findings below using the categorization of the group features. Following the review of findings, I provide an overview of the educational strategies which I organize into coherent categories for each group and period, as shown in Table 1 below.
Composition and Characteristics As I initially proposed, the demographics of the groups evidently determined the types and extent of internal resources available to each group to mobilize education efforts, and indicated the extent of the pool of resources to draw from. The initial strategies to seek out modern schooling significantly increased the socioeconomic status of the Jewish and Baha’i communities, and noticeably increased the status of Christians. By developing a new middle and upper class in society, not only did resources increase in quantity, but their quality improved. This finding illustrates what I refer to as the bi-cycle effect, in which group features not only affect strategies, but educational strategies significantly effect group compositions. Subsequently, I found that boundary shift in composition and characteristics also influenced the ideological orientation of groups. Ideological orientation shed light on underlying motives and goals for educational pursuits, and influenced how education and educational opportunities were framed, their importance to each group, and the risks worth taking to obtain them. I also discovered that boundary shift in ideological orientation also defined what strategies were desirable, acceptable, or unacceptable, including the extent to which groups would tolerate regime impositions and demands before engaging in contained contention or escalating claims into transgressive contention. I found that one of the central instruments for educational strategy development and deployment was pre-existing preference structures, including the groups’ leadership and organizational structures. As I argued throughout the chapters on group features and educational strategies, organizational structure created the coalitions and basis for collective action needed to carry out educational strategies, but also determined how strategies were brokered and diffused, how they were framed, and the kinds of networks that existed for the community. I further argue that community unity mattered in the operation of educational initiatives and the formation of educational strategies: that is, sectarian divisions caused significant obstacles, and when cultural diversity overrode community commonality, the deployment of educational strategies was negatively affected.
Networks My analysis shows that the three religious communities all relied, to one degree or another, on domestic and international networks in forming and selecting educational strategies. I argue that without international networks, community-based modern schooling initiatives would not have proliferated as they did. I suggest that organizational ties and common community characteristics determined how collaboration between domestic community groups and their transnational counterparts materialized. Groups which had hierarchical organizational structures, I contend, were able to benefit from centralized leadership to coordinate strategies on an international level, including mobilization of resources, framing of situations, and acting globally in the interest of domestic group communities. I maintain that network ties with transnational communities not only made it possible to import educational models, but allowed for exchange of cultural capital, opportunities to study abroad, or use the exit strategy when opportunities were blocked in Iran. Similarly, through my analysis I found that networks were used to strengthen identities through boundary activation, and reinforce group loyalties in the process of seeking education opportunities. In some cases, sectarian agendas varied or often conflicted, which I argue weakened ties or eliminated them across denominations. When groups had strong ties with transnational communities, another consideration, indirect ties, became important. When groups had strong transnational community ties, and those transnational communities had moderate to strong ties with other governmental and nongovernmental organizations, I show how collective action, particularly for advocacy, was a significant factor in educational strategies in the face of educational repression. I argue that while networks increased during the Pahlavi era, they decreased for those groups that were institutionalized during the Islamic Republic because of the influence of state-state relations with those countries that hosted the groups’ transnational communities.
Regime-Group Relations The study of regime-group relations confirmed ideas about political opportunity structure affecting the amount and kind of resources available for mobilization and collective action. I found that when the government was tolerant of group educational strategies, communities were more able to meet their goals, whether through innovation, integration, or isolation. During the second epoch of the Pahlavi era, I argue that facilitation and increased opportunities for religious minorities caused the Jewish and Baha’i communities to integrate into the state educational system and, to some extent, led to a reduction of activation or prominent boundaries. This may seem counter intuitive, but as I explain, it was the result of the ideological orientation of the communities to distinguish between religious and national identity, and thus integrate into the national body of the country. Conversely, I found that Christian ethnic communities, took advantage of regime leniency and continued with their deliberately insular educational strategy. However, during both regimes, when repression increased, I illustrated using the concepts laid out in my educational opportunity dynamic that groups responded differently, based not only on their characteristics and networks, but also in consideration of their standing with the regime. Government recognition status gave certain special educational rights to religious minorities, but I contend that it also officially gave rise to a distinct and polarized us-and-them relationship. Moreover, I argue that not being legally recognized had its disadvantages when groups faced incongruence between special community features and regime demands. I found that having a recognized representative in Parliament—constituting institutionalization—gave the respective communities (Jewish and Christian) the opportunity to make contentious claims regarding educational rights. I argue that by institutionalizing, and thus partially aligning with the regime agenda, state-state international relations bore on regime-group relations as well. For example, in cases where the Islamic Republic severed relations with the United States, Britain, and Israel, so, too, did the Jewish and Christian communities break formal ties with their sister communities in those communities, leading, in turn, to demobilization of resources, defection, and fragmentation of transnational community ties. The Baha’is, on the other hand, being officially unrecognized—and therefore not institutionalized as a community body—had the most restricted opportunity structure. I suggest that because they had no legal status or standing to lose, they were able to engage in more innovative and bold educational undertakings when no other alternatives were open to them.
Table 1
Prominent Educational Strategies by Group and Regime Period
Theoretical and Methodological Contributions In explaining educational strategy selection of religious minorities in Iran, I drew from three different fields of study: (a) conflict and critical theories of education, (b) social movement and contentious politics literature, and (c) international relations theories on internationalization, globalization and transnational movements. The integration of these three is an uncommon enterprise, probably because the fields have very little interaction, and often their theoretical considerations remain isolated within each field of study. By integrating concepts the three bodies of literature in this study, I have more adequately addressed the questions posed in this dissertation by accounting for reasons for educational repression, group responses and strategies in meeting education needs, and how international networks and relations influences group and regime features and decisions.
In the field of comparative and international education, the contentious politics approach is an absent but indispensable tool of analysis in understanding causal factors for selection of specific education strategy. It provides the basis for understanding why and how regimes use education to meet personal agenda and control their populations. Likewise, the study of international relations can contribute further to our understanding of transnational networks and the impact of internationalization on educational movements in repressive societies, particularly how human rights norms and regimes are used in furthering educational rights of minority groups—as I have done in this dissertation. In future studies within political sociology and international relations, the empirical use of cases subjects and episodes related to education would help to analyze and better understand political processes involving the interactions between regimes and groups; I maintain that education is and will probably remain one of the single most important spaces of contention between authoritarian regimes and groups in the state.
I enhanced the explanatory aspects of the theories further by employing three propositions identifying proposed causal factors in educational strategy selection: group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations. While other studies have focused on each of these in isolation, I looked at their dynamic combination in influencing educational strategy selection. My findings not only support these suppositions as important considerations in future studies on strategy selection by groups, but also indicate that adopted strategies affect group features. Within the construct of my educational opportunity dynamic model, I proposed a unique way of understanding the overarching processes and outcomes that shaped strategy selection: namely, the bi-cycle effect. This bi-cycle effect illustrates how group features affect strategies, but also how strategies in turn affect features. Taken together, they account for a more agent-centric approach to studying educational movements of minority groups.
While the literature on conflict theories helps explain the regime side of educational repression, most theories inadequately explains how groups cope and counter such strategies in constructive and meaningful ways. My inclusion of contentious politics literature helps enhance this neglected aspect of the contentious relationship between regimes and groups. It lays the foundation for theoretical considerations of what might be suitably referred to a topical sub-field of contentious politics of educational equity.
The importance of international relations theories helped establish the grounds for understanding the impact of international and transnational networks, as well as human rights norms in influencing both regime and group behaviour associated with educational agendas. I believe that by including the considerations of processes and mechanisms to explain how strategies materialized was another important contribution this dissertation made to the field.
The use of episodes and streams, as well as mechanisms and process was the foundation of this research enterprise. I included the consideration of my propositions within the interplay of political opportunity structures, framing, and resources, and called this more sophisticated modeling of conditional and causal factors the educational opportunity dynamic. This more nuanced conceptual modeling was the vehicle by which episodes of educational contention and actuation were analyzed for explaining strategy selection. Future undertakings that set out to explain educational strategy selection of specific groups may consider the steps developed in this dissertation as a generalizable analytical framework through which other cases in various regimes may be studied (see Table 2).
Table 2
Steps in Researching Educational Strategy Selection
Reflecting on the Past and Looking Forward Significance of the Study This dissertation should be of particular interest to those who study educational inequity. The literature is heavily weighted toward studying the effects of regime repression, as well as issues related to the disparities of accessibility and quality. This dissertation has broken from this emphasis, and, instead, provides a fresh perspective on how groups respond to such contentious interactions. Empirically, it has effectively assessed a large and disparate body of primary and secondary sources, sifted them for quality, and examined comprehensively the features that go into strategy selection. It has also integrated relatively disconnected literature and recasts them into a modified theoretical and methodological framework that may be used by scholars in comparative education, political sociology, and international relations in looking at regime-group interactions and the formation and selection of educational strategies. Therefore, this work represents a substantial source for others who undertake a study of Jews, Christians, and Baha’is in Iran. More importantly, this dissertation is a foundation for future studies on educational strategy selection, educational inequity, and group education movements and resistance.
The study should also be of interest to those involved in educational policy—particularly those advocating for educational rights—because it highlights how processes are affected by regime-group relations as well as international and supranational networks. For example, it provides onlookers with actual strategies that are selected, how those strategies play out, and how future strategies may help facilitate increased educational opportunities while not being of detriment to the community. Finally, scholars in the field of comparative education would benefit from the incorporation of methods drawn from social movement and contentious politics studies to provide explanations for phenomena which remain unexamined.
Contributions of the Study This dissertation, for the first time, provides a monographic multi-case study of religious minorities in Iran and their educational strategies. It is likely that previous attempts were not made because of the disparate body of literature available. I believe that the integration and organization of modified theories and methods used and developed in this dissertation allowed me to not only provide empirically sound analysis, but also enabled me to produce a theoretical and methodologically contribution to the fields of comparative and international education, political sociology, and international relations. This comparative study charters an unexplored area in the field of comparative and international education, namely, the casual factors for minority group educational strategy selection in authoritarian settings. It categorizes groups according to an innovative classification of features. The application of historical analysis using the mechanism-process approach in tracing the effects of group composition and characteristics, networks, and regime-group relations on strategy selection is a departure from isolated and descriptive case studies. The concept of educational strategies itself is understudied, and I am confident that this dissertation sheds light on dimensions of strategy selection which have not previously been considered or studied, and provides the fundamental theoretical and methodological tools to do so.
Methodological Enhancements and Future Research In undertaking this study of three religious minority groups over two regimes and 85 years, it became evident that each one of these cases could have constituted a study on its own. Nonetheless, it was precisely the comparative nature of this dissertation that provided insights into the bearing of variations in group features on educational strategy selection. However, some additional enhancements may have contributed to the study. First, a proper network analysis may have provided more substantial grounding for considering its effect on educational strategy selection. While beyond the scope of this dissertation, future studies could take up an exclusively comparative analysis of the effects of networks on educational strategies, primarily how resources and advocacy play a role in claiming educational rights and securing opportunities. Second, access to more sources in different languages would have provided greater empirical leverage in studying Armenian and Assyrian sources, as well as accessing archival sources in Hebrew and French. Most noticeable is the absence of the Zoroastrian religious minority in this study. While I have explained the technical reasons for their exclusion elsewhere, their inclusion in a future empirical analysis would be a worthy undertaking.
Future research could certainly build on the research design used in this study, by refining the methods of analysis. Smaller research projects could take up segments of this study for more in-depth examination, such as the different types framing processes in developing educational strategies, or the role of human rights regimes in determining state educational policies, and so forth. However, the robustness of the content and the range of elements prevented greater elaboration of certain concepts and particular issues. Future studies can focus on specific phenomena and interpretations put forward in this dissertation, such as the advantages and disadvantages of regime recognition and representation in selecting and deploying educational strategies. It would be interesting to focus on how institutionalization causes limitations in educational strategy selection, and conversely how non-institutionalization results sometimes in bolder initiatives. This study has opened the way for multiple research explorations, and supports efforts to research agent-centered topics in educational equity studies. In the final analysis, I believe this dissertation is a pioneering work for future studies on the contentious politics of education.
[1] Freedom House uses a four part matrix covering four areas which they equate in the aggregate with freedom: (1) accountability and public voice; (2) civil liberties; (3) rule of law; and (4) anticorruption and transparency.