The cultural impact assessment of development of higher education in the humanities in Iran: Strategic necessities

The policy of higher education development in two recent decades, with concentrate on Graduate and Ph.D. degrees of Humanities, is the project which this dissertation is intended to set up a cultural impact assessment related to it. Two Axes of four axes of cultural impact assessment are in the agenda of this thesis: "counting cultural impacts related to this policy" and "Policy recommendations to resolve negative impacts and strengthen positive impacts". In addition to these two axes, this study also examines the "policy makers' motives" of this development. In the theoretical framework, after the presentation of fifteen indicators of higher education in humanities, theories of higher education development are briefly discussed. The data collection phase is carried out using two methods of "interviewing elites and teachers" and "library". Finally, the data obtained from field studies and library studies are analyzed and classified using the "grounded theory" method in three stages. The impacts are classified into four levels: "Organizational and policy level", "Level of scientific community", "The Level of General Culture" and "Family and Individual Level". Policy recommendations are also presented at four levels: "Educational and Research Activities at the University", "University and Society Relations", "General Culture" and "Family". In another level of analysis, the impacts are evident in three aspects: 1.Desirable impacts against undesirable impacts 2.Direct implications against indirect consequences 3.Expected and planned outcomes against unexpected consequences. The immediate/indirect consequences are also divided into three categories: Independent variable, interventional variable and dependent variable.