Construction of Acceptable Citizenship Through Primary School Textbooks in Iran

Abstract

This article aims to shed light on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s conception of citizenship that emerged from the 1979 Revolution by analyzing primary school textbooks. Those are 14 books of common courses: Persian, Teaching the Qur’an, Heaven’s Gifts: Islamic Education and Training and Social Studies. At the end of this analysis, it was revealed that the conception of citizenship, which creates the ideal society of the Iranian state consisting of acceptable citizens, is fed by the idea of the ummah and based on both sectarian and ethnic identities in accordance with the Shiite-Muslim and Shiite-Iranian elements of the state.