Theories of Justice and Their Applications in the Field of Educational Policy in Iran (Case Study: Student Admission Quotas)

The student admission system of any country can lead to justice when its policies are fair. In this regard, the objective of this study is to analyze one of the most important student admission policies in Iran, namely the quota policy and creating quotas for some candidates from the perspective of justice. To this end, this descriptive-analytical study used library studies (study of documents and literature) for data collection. Therefore, among all the documents related to student admission quotas (research community), documents related to student admission quotas after the Islamic Revolution were selected as the research sample. Then, two important theories of justice, namely the theories of John Rawls and Sen, were used to analyze those documents. The trustworthiness of the research was confirmed through showing the details of how to derive the concepts and meanings from the two theories, mentioning the details of the data, and presenting many examples. Finally, the research results were compared with those of other studies. The results of the analysis generally show that since John Rawls, in addition to equality in process, considered equality in outcome, according to his theory, it is fair to create a quota based on conditions. Unlike Rawls, Sen places more emphasis on equality in process than equality in outcome. Therefore, according to Sen's theory, empowerment and capability building are recommended instead of quotas. Furthermore, the results of the analysis show that according to Rawls’s Theory of Justice, it is fair to create a quota when discrimination is positive. Otherwise, it will cause injustice in the society because it violates the principle of equal opportunity for the candidates to enter the universities. It is also possible to ensure that the quota is fair when the problem of conflict of interest is resolved in the student admissions decision-making and policy-making system.