The Logic Behind Educational Policy Formation as a Vehicle for Establishing Dominance: An Examination of Higher Education Policy in Iran

This paper aims to address the relationship between educational policy-making and metaphysical narratives. It claims that such linkage leads to the production of domination. Traditional narratives of metaphysics consistently long for a homogenous understanding of the essence of objects. However, such a volition is attainable but through the construction of binaries and the neglect of differences. Likewise, establishing higher educational policies based on metaphysical narratives reinforces the aforementioned attribute. Aligned with the subject matter, the methodology of the paper is descriptive, analytical, and critical. The research consists of both primary and secondary sources, especially the Document of Strategic Transformation of Science and Technology and the Document of Comperhensive Scientefic Plan of The Country, which were offered to the researcher. The result indicates that Iran’s higher educational policy-making is influenced by a Platonic and Aristotelian dualism. As a result, such a dualism is explicitly reflected in the theoretical and value foundations of Iran’s higher education documents. One of consequences of such a dualism, among many others, lies in the marginalization of a pole and the inevitable domination of the other. It appears that to resolve such a problematic condition a new philosophical perspective is required so that it might be able to render the possibility of a new distinctive perspective for educational policy-making.