English in Post-Revolutionary Iran
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English in Post-Revolutionary Iran

From Indigenization to Internationalization

Maryam Borjian

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eBook - ePub

English in Post-Revolutionary Iran

From Indigenization to Internationalization

Maryam Borjian

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About This Book

This book unravels the story of English, the language of 'the enemies', in post-revolutionary Iran. Drawing on diverse qualitative and quantitative fieldwork data, it examines the nation's English at the two levels of policy and practice to determine the politics, causes, and agents of the two diverging trends of indigenization/localization and internationalization/Anglo-Americanization within Iran's English education. Situating English in the nation's broader social, political, economic, and historical contexts, the volume explores the intersection of the nation's English education with variables such as power, economy, policy, ideology, and information technology over the past three decades. The multidisciplinary insights of the book will be of value to scholars of global English, education policies and reforms and language policy as well as those who are specifically concerned with education in Iran.

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Year
2013
ISBN
9781847699114

Part 1

Theoretical and Historical Perspectives

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

1 The Politics of Educational Transfers: Process, Causes and Agents

Language planning involves a constant negotiation of the interests of different social groups and of the changing priorities of a community. Rather than treating them as a problem for policy formation, we should think of tensions as opening up more complex orientations to language in education.
Suresh Canagarajah, 2005b: 194
This chapter examines the politics of ELT educational transfers around the world in order to identify the most common variables associated with the process (what and how), causes (why) and agents (who) of ELT educational transfers worldwide. It is meant to offer the reader a global perspective, before narrowing down the focus on the politics of educational transfers in post-revolutionary Iran, the subject nation of this book. In doing so, we will propose a threefold framework: national forces and educational transfers, subnational forces and educational transfers, and supranational forces and educational transfers. Through this framework, we will use the multilevel analytical lens proposed in the introduction as a springboard to shed light on various issues surrounding the global import/export of ELT models and standards around the globe.

National Forces and Educational Transfers

One set of powerful actors in almost all nations is politicians and government officials or those who are interacting at the nation-state level. In the field of comparative policy, the term ‘emulation’ refers to a policy process in which politicians or state officials copy policy lessons taken from elsewhere (Bennett, 1991). In other words, politicians and top governmental officials are the ones who trigger a policy transfer. In the context of comparative education, ‘policy borrowing’ refers to a process by which education models, ideas, norms or standards are taken from one context and transplanted into another by politicians (Phillips, 2000, 2004; Phillips & Ochs, 2003; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). Policy emulation or borrowing is by no means a novel phenomenon. From the beginning of their existence, as noted by Siegel and Weinberg (1977), nations have sought to borrow and adapt successful policies, models and lessons from other nations, be it in the field of economy, politics, the cultural arena or in education. What is new and unprecedented, however, is the intensification and acceleration of policy borrowing nearly everywhere in the world and in nearly every field of activity, particularly in education and its sub-field of ELT.
Before examining the causes of receptiveness towards foreign lessons and ideas – labeled as ‘externalization’ by Schriewer (2004) – on the part of politicians, we should begin by posing a number of questions, as suggested by Steiner-Khamsi (2004): Why do politicians seek to borrow an education model from elsewhere? What are the stimuli triggering lesson drawing? What problems do politicians believe would be solved by borrowing a foreign model? David Phillips (2000, 2004; Phillips & Ochs, 2003), one of the first scholars to pioneer research into the politics of educational borrowing, proposes various stimuli that may spark off cross-national policy attraction. Such stimuli could be economic motivations, political change or systematic collapse, internal dissatisfaction, negative external evaluation, or new configuration or allies, among others. Whatever the catalyst for change may be, it will create conditions that make possible the search for successful lessons, ideas or norms from elsewhere.

Economic motives

A major contributor to policy borrowing in the realm of education is the economic motive. Politicians and state officials often tend to perceive education as a main means to achieve economic growth and development. Such market-oriented perception towards education can be traced back to 1971, when Shultz proposed his neoliberal economic theory of human capital. The underlying assumption of his theory is the idea that the most efficient path to the national development of any society lies in the improvement of its labor force or its human capital. One way to improve human capital is to invest in education, as it increases productivity by teaching young people new skills, on the one hand, and contributes to ‘development’ and ‘modernity’ through the inculcation of so-called modern attitudes, on the other hand (Shultz, 1971). The human capital theory has provided a basic justification for underdeveloped and developing nations to look abroad to emulate a promising educational model that would lead them to economic growth.
The discourse accompanying English language, like that of education, equates language learning with economic and social progress and prosperity. English is represented as the language of global commerce, trade and culture. It is claimed to be inherently beneficial, holding out promises of social and economic development to all those who learn it (Barber, 1993; Crystal, 1997; David & Govindasamy, 2005; McArthur, 1998). It is also considered key to improving social life for underdeveloped nations because it provides equal opportunity for all. Unraveling the ‘myth of English as an international language’, Pennycook (2004) provides an excerpt from the EL Gazette, which even goes one step further by suggesting that the widespread introduction of English into primary sectors around the world will eventually lead to the amelioration of worldwide poverty.
Today, the outlook most countries in the world are creating for themselves is shaped by global interaction, the global economy, the global job market, etc. What makes English pedagogy important to most politicians is the very vital role it plays in the virtually borderless world of today, giving the language a high economic value. As a result, many fast-developing nations such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia, among many others, have placed a high premium on English language education (see David & Govindasamy, 2005; Gill, 2005; Pennycook, 1998; Rubdy, 2005). It is not surprising then to see that in 2002, after a gap of 20 years, Malaysian politicians and language planners revitalized the policy of English as the language of instruction in selected fields – the very policy that Malaysian politicians had seriously fought against since the independence of their nation in 1957 (Gill, 2005). In order for this goal to materialize, the Malaysian leaders and language planners constantly linked English to economic growth and development. As a result, in 2002 English was chosen to be the only language of instruction in math and science at school level. This change of language policy was soon accompanied by a change in the school curricula, for which there was a need both to borrow a model from abroad and to rely on foreign experts and consultants, most particularly from English-speaking nations (David & Govindasamy, 2005). Hence, an economic motive was one of the reasons that led Malaysian politicians to revise their school language policy and to look abroad for a promising English education model to emulate. The question as to whether the new ELT model would lead developing nations to achieve their desired goals is an open-ended question, but one that is worth exploring.

Radical socio-economic changes

Another stimulus that could trigger a borrowing attraction on the part of politicians might be radical socio-economic changes in a country. Since the 1970s, for example, Saudi Arabia has profoundly invested in English language education. The main factor influencing the status and function of English was the Saudi’s oil boom economy. The shortage of Saudi manpower in various professional domains has resulted in the necessity to import foreign manpower, whose language of communication is English. Examining the status of English in Saudi Arabia, Al-Haq and Samadi (1996) maintain that the Saudi politicians felt a need for English in order to cope with the country’s radical socio-economic changes. The authors go further to argue that in Saudi Arabia the need to borrow ELT models and standards from abroad was not imposed by forces external to the country. Rather, it was shaped by the radical changes that took place within the socio-economic context of the nation since the early 1970s.
Saudi Arabia is not the only country in which politicians and policymakers displayed enormous interest towards English due to socio-economic transformation. In fact, other oil-producing nations in the Middle East, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (Karmani, 2005), can fall into this category. With the inflow of petroleum dollars, these nations have undertaken massive modernization movements since the late 1970s. These reform movements, in turn, have led to an extreme reliance on foreign expertise and human resources, mostly from Western nations. It was within this milieu that English became a powerful tool in facilitating the economic and social modernization process.

Political motives

Another major cause for educational transfers is the political motive. Sometimes foreign-borrowed policies, models or reform movements reinforce the legitimization for a fundamental reform within the nation (Schriewer, 2004; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). In the late 1970s, after being isolated for several decades from the outside world, the Chinese government felt a need for a major reform, which would lead the nation towards openness to the outside world and modernization. An independent, creative and productive labor force became the priority for Chinese officials, so education was the first sphere targeted for modernization (Ouyang, 2003). Comparative educationalists argue (Luschei, 2004; Phillips, 2004; Steiner-Khamsi & Quist, 2000), that when it comes to policy borrowing, politicians first search for policy solutions in their own past, and if an organization’s policy legacy is not strong enough to solve the current problems, they look abroad for answers. Since the Chinese homegrown education models were highly contested at home, Chinese politicians displayed an enormous interest in foreign education systems. As a result, they carried out a national campaign for reforming the curriculum towards a more Western-style liberal pedagogy. In such circumstances, English education received particular attention. To speed up the reform process, Chinese politicians borrowed the CLT model from Britain, the United States, Australia and Canada, and invited foreign consultants to demonstrate ‘advanced’ CLT to local practitioners (Ouyang, 2003).
However, politicians do not always make carefully measured and judged decisions when it comes to borrowing a model from abroad. They may borrow a model not meant to be fully implemented locally but rather to be used as a mechanism to meet their own immediate needs. This type of policy borrowing is known as ‘quick fix’ or ‘phony’ policies (Phillips, 2004). The implementation of CLT in China could be taken as an instance of a phony policy. Ouyang (2003) maintains that Chinese officials used CLT as a catchphrase to fulfill the political target of legitimizing the need for reform at home.
In other instances, especially after a regime change, policies borrowed from abroad are used to discredit the former regime and to justify a replacement of bureaucratic functionaries (Schriewer & Martinez, 2004). We can trace instances of such policies in most post-Soviet countries. Examining the history of English in post-Soviet Russia, Ter-Minasova (2005) maintains that the newly elected Russian officials showed an enormous interest in English education and adopted a wholesale borrowing strategy, using English as a buzzword to discredit the Soviet regime and to legitimize the need for reform, which included openness towards the outside world. Subsequently, British publishers flooded Russia with ELT textbooks, many of which were poor in quality. After some time, however, the new generation of Russian politicians took a more moderate approach by asking local publishing agencies to design English textbooks relevant to Russian culture and life.
A radical political change within a country does not always boost policy borrowing or trigger receptiveness towards foreign influence. Steiner-Khamsi (2004) argues that, during the period of regime change, politicians may either drop their references to lessons from abroad or use them in a disparaging manner to distance themselves from foreign influence. Illuminating instances of hostility towards foreign influence could be seen in the case of English education in post-revolutionary Cuba (Corona & Garcia, 1996) and post-revolutionary Iran (Borjian, 2009). In the introductory years of these revolutions, the politicians of both nations put enormous efforts into eliminating all ties with the United States. English was the first sphere targeted for indigenization and liberation from American influence. Nonetheless, such liberalization came to an end after two decades. Since the early 1980s and mid-1990s, respectively, Cuban and Iranian politicians have recognized the importance of English and thus have tolerated the publication of pirated foreign-produced English textbooks, most of them American and British, in their countries.

Negative internal evaluations

Politicians often compare their education systems to those of others. Gita Steiner-Khamsi (2003) outlines three types of reaction as the result of such a comparison: scandalization, i.e. when politicians highlight the weakness of their own educational system; glorification, i.e. when politicians only highlight the strength of their own educational system, and indifference, i.e. when no reaction is displayed. While scandalization intensifies policy borrowing, glorification stimulates policy lending.
Highlighting the weakness of one’s own educational system in order to underpin educational reforms is evident in much of the literature of ELT. The Malaysian government, as previously discussed, used scandalization as their main strategy to revitalize the policy of English as the language of instruction in selected fields. Entirely disregarding the role of other variables, Malaysian officials and language planners constantly blamed their education system for producing students with low English proficiency, leading the nation to underdevelopment and Malay students to unemployment (David & Govindasamy, 2005; Gill, 2005). A similar trend of scandalization appeared in Kenya and Uganda, two former colonies of Britain, in the early 1990s. In spite of tremendous investment put into the promotion of English, fear of ‘falling standards’ of English was a major issue in Kenyan and Ugandan government reports and media. According to Mazrui and Mazrui (1998), a major recurrent issue in the debate was how the problem of the quality of English was leading to poor performance in other subjects, giving the impression that virtually the whole education system of Kenya and Uganda was in crisis and that the only possible way to save the situation was to invest immensely more resources into raising students’ English proficiency. To solve the problem, Kenyan and Ugandan officials turned to the British Overseas Development Agency and the British Council for support. Soon a chain of projects intended to strengthen the position of English were initiated and implemented in both nations.
The reaction of ‘indifference’ can best be seen on the part of post-revolutionary nations, including China (Ouyang, 2003), Cuba (Corona & Garcia, 1996) and Iran (Borjian, 2009). In spite of the existence of various negative internal and external evaluations, the politicians of these nations seem to have decided not to borrow an education model from abroad, at least in the introductory years of the three revolutions, for political and ideological reasons alone.
We have distilled various stimuli that may spark off an attraction towards borrowing a foreign education model, lesson or idea on the part of politicians and government officials. These stimuli are by no mean conclusive, and many others can be added to the list. However, as these instances illustrate, politicians are a major force in reinforcing educational transfers for which they may have different motives, including political and economic ones.

Subnational Forces and Educational Transfers

Educational transfers cannot be examined by primarily looking at the actions of top government officials or national forces. In fact, as the insights of policy analysts (Howlett & Ramesh, 1995; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993) show us, it would be misleading to refer to those in positions of authority as the sole decision makers because many other people and social forces may influence policy outcomes. In the previous section we discussed the role of politicians and national forces in reinforcing educational transfers. In this section, we seek to identify the role of subnational forces, those societal actors who interact below the nation-state level – actors who do not hold governmental authority but who use their funds, power and/or voices to pull policy outcome, either directly or indirectly, in the directions they desire.

Professional elite networks

A major subnational force involved in educational transfers is the ‘professional or elite networks’, using Bennett’s suggested (1991) term, corresponding to the ‘professional tribalism’ of Rose (1993). Professional networks refer to a group of connected individuals from a given profession such as TESOL and applied linguistics in the field of ELT. Having many professional concerns in common, through publishing, speech making and conferences, professional groups share ideas, expertise and information about a common problem with their transnational counterparts. ‘Transfer in this sense’, as Bennett (1991) notes, ‘results from the existence of shared ideas among a relatively coherent and enduring network of elites engaging in regular interaction at the transnational level’ (Bennett, 1991: 224).
As we will show in this book, in spite of Iranian politicians’ 30-year-long efforts to indigenize the field of ELT in the country, the ‘indigenization’ movement has failed to isolate local English professors and scholars from their transnational counterparts. Examining the content of the two Iranian ELT journals, we will illustrate how Iranian ELT professional networks not only discuss similar research problems with their transnational counterparts but also interact with them closely. The Iranian ELT journals seem to be one venue for the importation of ELT standards into the country. But can the Iranian professional ELT networks be perceived as helpless victims manipulated by their international counterparts? The answer seems to be negative as the borrowing process is happening quite willingly and voluntarily on their part. It is partly due to the fact of belonging to one transnational professional network, namely TESOL and applied linguistics, and consequently sharing similar ideas, expertise and information about issues surrounding ELT. In addition, they constantly refer to English as the ‘global language of science, technology and research’ in their academic discourse in order to question the product-oriented promotion of English supported by the country’s politicians, and thus they are using foreign lessons as a means to legitimize the need for reform and to argue against policy decisions at home.
There are other motivations involved in supporting the idea of educational transfers on the part of professional elites. Sometimes professional networks may support educational transfers just as a mechanism to meet their own needs (Si...

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