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Dissertation Information for Monica Mary Ringer

NAME:
- Monica Mary Ringer

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (1998)

ADVISORS:
- Nikkie Keddie
- Hossein Ziai

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Michael Morony

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Education and reform in Qajar Iran, 1800-1906

Abstract: Throughout the period 1800-1906, education played a central role in the conflicts between tradition and change, and in the dilemmas involved in the process of modernization and westernization. Questions regarding the desirability or even the possibility of divorcing European learning and technology from European political and social ideas were at the center of educational debates. The promotion of European-style education was also intimately connected to the nature and degree of social and political reform desired in Iran. As part of an attempt to strengthen central governmental authority, educational reform directly challenged a variety of socioeconomic groups and individual political interests. Advocates and opponents of European-style education competed in the ideological sphere as well as the political sphere. The history of educational reform in Iran serves as a window into the belief system concerning the modernization/westernization dilemma. It is also the chronicle of the sociopolitical events which culminated in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11. European-style education was introduced at the outset of the nineteenth century as part of an attempt to strengthen Iran's military and thereby stave off European territorial and political incursions. It was at this time that Europe emerged both as the model and source of reform, as well as a political and cultural threat. The challenge became how to adopt aspects of European technology, while at the same time, protecting Iran's cultural integrity. Over time, as the perceived benefits of European-style education changed, so did the goals of the reform-minded statesmen and educational activists who promoted it. In the 1860-1906 period, European-style education came to be viewed by its advocates as a means of achieving substantive social and political reform. By the 1890s, reform theorists believed that the provision of general literacy was causally related to the ability to establish constitutional government. "New," European-style education became a social and political panacea. The advocacy of European-style education led to conflict with the existing educational system controlled by the religious establishment. Conflict between the two institutions and the Weltanschauungen they represented intensified throughout the century, reaching climactic proportions following the establishment of a number of "new" primary European-style schools in the late 1890s. The focus on primary education was a major challenge to the political status quo. It also represented both an institutional and cultural threat to the traditional educational system, as it constituted a bid to replace it. The "new" schools also challenged the ulama's cultural dominance by ending their monopoly over primary education and the inculcation of attitudes and beliefs.

MPACT Scores for Monica Mary Ringer

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-10-08 10:33:45

Advisors and Advisees Graph

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Students under Monica Mary Ringer

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None