Conceptualization of Justice in Iranian Educational System: A Case Study of Elementary and Secondary Schools' Text Books

This study investigates the place of "justice" as one of the fundamental and challenging terms of politics and ethics which have been considered by philosophers, social scientists, and policy makers. Also, the paper considers vital role of the curriculum contents of different educational systems in forming the mental patterns, beliefs and values of the young generation of the society. This paper aims to understand how to conceptualize the justice in the Iranian educational system through using a qualitative textual analysis method. The statistical population includes all pre-university textbooks. The research findings show that school textbooks are addressed the issue of "justice" in the form of eight general themes (such as religious orientation, history orientation, diffrentiation, consequentialism, power and justice ratio, aesthetic and ethical issues, thinking/contemplation and patterning) in the Books of History, Religion and Life and (Persian) Literature in Primary/Elementary Schools as well as Economics, Sociology and Social Education Books which are taught in High Schools, also Social Education, Religious education, Persian Literature and Arabic Books in Secondary Schools. The overarching themes in respect of contents are based on religious and historical dimensions while there is little logical relation between the justice discourses in the Secondary Education Levels and before. Therefore, it is of high importance that the concepts such as justice which is rooted in our values, doctrines and laws are taken into consideration. Consequently, it is suggested that curriculum contents of educational system are reviewed in order to maintain the consistency as well as concentration of the texts books’ contents in accordance with the objectives of Iran’s 20-Year Vision Plan, (6) Development Plans (of the Islamic Republic of Iran) and education sector development plan.