Analysis of the Components of Peace Education in the Discourse Documents of Education

The present paper aimed at analyzing the peace education components in the discourse of Iranian education documents with a critical view toward the role of dominant political discourses in the presentment of peace and peace education in Iranian society. To this end, the discourse of education documents in elementary school, middle school, and junior high school levels (between 1994 and 2014) were analyzed and questions like the following were addressed:What is the status of the core components of peace education in the discourse of Iranian education documents and what is the discourse prevailing over them? What are the nodal points and antagonistic boundaries of the aforementioned discourses and what role have they played in the presentment of peace education? This paper used a discourse analysis research method to analyze the existing and produced official documents in Iranian education through a critical look. The findings showed that the peace education components have not been introduced to the education documents of this period. Moreover, the introduction of ideas and themes of war, enmity, and hatred in this period’s educational texts has resulted in negative stereotyping as well as legitimization of violence and war in individuals’ beliefs, besides marginalizing peace through creating a cycle of violence. The ideological discourse with a revolutionary fervor was identified as the discourse prevailing over the education documents. Educational discourse in this period has become hegemonic based on the nodal point of religion as well as support for the oppressed. Furthermore, in the results of these analyses, antagonistic boundaries, nodal points, and moments were presented in the form of a discourse model.