The Portrayal of Women in Nationally-Endorsed English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Textbooks for Senior High School Students in Indonesia

From a critical feminist perspective, women are not fairly represented in English as a foreign language (EFL) textbooks. The unequal representation of women in EFL textbooks potentially affects students’ negative perceptions and misconceptions about gender identity (re)construction. The findings of previous studies on gender issues in language textbooks mostly indicate that they depict gender biases and stereotypes, but some studies reported positive images of women. To continue a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of EFL textbooks from a feminist perspective, the present study looks at visual and textual discourses representing images of women in EFL textbooks in the Indonesian secondary school context. The findings reveal that some gendered discourses expressed by female characters and social actors in the analyzed textbooks support the continuation of gender biases and stereotypes, but some emerging discourses represent constructive images of women. This textual study suggests that as English plays an increasingly important role in a transcultural and post-feminist world, authors of English textbooks must pay attention to the issue of gender in language education.     

Formation of gender identity in the Islamic republic of Iran: does educational institution matter?

This article focuses on the process of gender identity construction through the educational system from a socio-cultural perspective. Socialisation operates as a strategy to protect social unity and group superiority. Although socialisation is an enduring process involving various institutions, childhood is a vital period of gender socialisation whereby schools and school textbooks play a substantial role as the first official sources of socialisation in children. Using content analysis method, this article focuses on Iran’s primary school textbooks. The results support the pattern of ‘gender bias’, rather than ‘gender fairness’. This is a more evident observation in the higher educational grades. The patterns highlighted here are evidently incompatible with socio-demographic progresses in women’s status over recent years, which call for revision in the school education resources in this context.     

Culture and Gender Representation in Iranian School Textbooks

This study examines the representations of male and female social actors in selected Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbooks. It is grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis and uses van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model to analyze social actor representations in the gendered discourses of compulsory heterosexuality. Findings from the analysis show that the representations endorse the discourse of compulsory heterosexuality which is an institutionalized form of social practice in Iran. Three male and three female students were interviewed to find out what they think about these representations. Their responses with regard to whether they think textbooks should also include representations of other forms of sexuality were non-committal and vague. To them LGBT people are the “Other” practicing a form of sexuality that is not normal. Such exclusions could obscure the reality regarding the existence of such gender identities and represent the world in a particular manner.     

Social Change and Change in Intentions of Iranian Youth Regarding Education,Marriage, and Careers

Effects of large-scale socio-political movements and policy changes on individual attitudes and behaviours have been the focus of attention of social scientists and policy-makers in different countries. For example, concerns have been expressed regarding the effects of the so-called “fundamentalist” Islamic movements on attitudes and behaviours in relation to marriage, family structure, and the roles/rights of women. The Islamic Revolution of 1978 in Iran is usually assumed to have affected such beliefs and behaviours. To test the accuracy of such an assumption, three data sets collected in the same geographical location in 1982, 1984, and 1986 were compared within sex and SES groups. The intentions and aspirations of high school seniors regarding education, marriage, and careers were closer to conservative/traditional expectations in the 1982 sample than in the 1984 and 1986 samples. It is concluded that, even if there was an increase in traditionalism shortly after the Revolution, traditional tendencies have not returned to extreme levels within the few years surveyed, at least among the urban educated youth under study. Alarm regarding a ‘return to fundamentalism” in relation to marriage, family, and women's roles/rights might be less warranted than is commonly assumed.     

苏非主义与明清汉文译著活动

明清以来,穆斯林学者卓有成效的汉文译著活动,成就了中国伊斯兰教思想和实践。在这一活动中,苏非主义也起了相当的作用,苏非来华传教、苏非作品传入中国并在经堂教育中作为课本使用,都对明清穆斯林学者的译著活动产生了一定影响,使他们的译著作品带有苏非主义特征。     

Islamic religious education in Belgian state schools: a post-secular perspective

Abstract

Based on Habermas’ normative theory of religion in post-secular society, this article elaborates on the organisation of Islamic religious education (RE) in state schools. Hereto, a brief sketch of the Habermasian concepts of reflexive religion and complementary learning processes will be given. Subsequently, the author addresses the role of RE in post-secular society and applies these Habermasian concepts to confessional RE, with particular attention to Islamic RE in Belgium, where this subject is included as an optional subject in the state school curriculum since 1975, but where it is also criticised today, in particular with regard to content, teacher-training, textbooks, and inspection. These deficiencies will lead us to one of the main problems of Islamic RE and of confessional RE in general: the absence of state control. Based on Habermas’ ideas, the author concludes that it is up to the state to elucidate under which conditions confessional RE can be part of the regular curriculum, and to facilitate these conditions, by funding and co-organising teacher training, reviewing curricula and textbooks, formulating a ‘core curriculum’ and controlling teachers, for example. If these conditions have not been met, confessional RE should not be a part of the regular curriculum in a liberal state.     

Coming to Terms with Modernity: Iranian intellectuals and the emerging public sphere

Almost two decades after the Islamic revolution of 1979, the quest of Iranians for a distinct religious identity produced a new socio-political movement, which incorporated a pluralistic rhetoric in the name of reform. Since the presidential elections of May 1997, an intensifying fascination has emerged with exposing the internal diversities of the Islamic nation via a language of critique. The June 2001 elections confirmed the popular desire for reform. This reform movement has given voice to the needs and desires of so-far peripheral groups (youth, women, intellectuals, artists and ethnic minorities, etc.), who tend to appropriate Islam in order to come into public life as active protagonists. Recent discursive developments in Iran demonstrate the real possibility of the public expression of dissent within the constraints of Islamic politics. This paper is meant to offer an overview of how new intellectual interpretations of Islamic tradition in Iran since 1997 are contributing to cultural, social and political critique, within a public sphere defined by Islam.     

Biblical Fidelity of Christian School Textbooks

A reasonable expectation of textbooks used in Christian schools is that they should regularly incorporate biblical content. It is also reasonable to expect the biblical content to be integrated—not segregated—to influence matters such as worldview, biblical relevance, character, and integrative skills. This expectation was tested via a representative sampling of 15 texts across a span of elementary, middle, and high school grades and representative content areas from eight Christian schools in the eastern Virginia region. Important findings include: close to half the texts used in the schools were from non-Christian publishers; textbooks from Christian publishers were predominantly from only two companies; the adequacy of textbook worldview scores is not in alignment with research showing major student deficiency in Christian worldviews; and approximately half of the scores for Christian textbooks were below the minimally acceptable level.     

Making Muslims: The Politics of Religious Identity Construction and Victoria's Islamic Schools

Islamic schools in Australia have become a subject of notable societal and academic interest, but discussions on the purpose of these schools are often approached from the perspective of concerns about national security or the integration of ethnic minorities. Given the growing popularity of Islamic schools in the Australian educational landscape, critics of such schools often assume that their pedagogical climate, curriculum and “separatist” environment does not foster the formation of cultural citizenship. This essay analyses the complex interplay between religion, Islamic identity formation and the politics of schooling in diasporic settings on the basis of an analysis of the experiences of graduates of Islamic schools in Victoria. It provides an insight into the multidimensional role Victoria's Islamic schools play and enables a better understanding of how the schooling of Muslim students in Victoria's Islamic schools relates to the development of an Islamic identity, which is critical to a conceptualizing of how Islamic schools are considered sites for religious identity construction.     

Religiosity and Islamic Rule in Iran

We investigate the relationship between religiosity and support for Islamic rule in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Are high levels of religiosity associated with an ideology characterized by clerical rule, supremacy of Islamic law, and state enforcement of Islam? The data come from a random sampling survey conducted in Tehran in August 2003. It covers a range of questions on religiosity, social, and political attitudes, and has a sample of 412 respondents. The analyses show that religiosity is closely affiliated with an ideological understanding of Islam in Tehran. Interestingly, political dissatisfaction does not negatively affect this association. Shi‘ism in Iran has evolved from a “world‐shaking” force into a “world‐legitimating” force.     

Survey Zoroastrians: Online Religious Identification in the Islamic Republic of Iran

This article contributes to the internationalization of survey methodology by discussing a case from a totalitarian state, the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2020, GAMAAN (The Group for Measuring and Analyzing Attitudes in Iran) conducted an online survey on religion. The survey had 50,000 participants, around 90 percent of whom lived in Iran. This article discusses the result that, after weighting, 8 percent identified as Zoroastrian—many times the number of Zoroastrians as recorded by scholarship on Iranian Zoroastrianism. We dub this phenomenon “Survey Zoroastrianism” and offer an explanation for this finding. After describing the position of Zoroastrianism in modern Iran and adding two further online surveys conducted by GAMAAN in 2022, we discuss the Survey Zoroastrians’ demographics and their religious and political views. The analysis shows that participating in surveys beyond the government's control provided affordances for performing alternative identity aspirations tied to notions of nationalism and civilizational heritage.     

Christianity in Turkish religious education

This article aims to examine the presentation of Christianity in terms of selected Turkish textbooks. Particular attention is given to three issues: Jesus, the role of Paul in the development of Christianity, and the Scriptures. These topics are frequently dealt with and emphasized by the textbooks. Other themes related to Christianity are also mentioned, as well as its visual presentation. Before this examination, in order to provide a background for the presentation of Christianity in the textbooks, the history of religious education and the teaching of non‐Islamic religions in schools are briefly investigated. The examination notes the explicit influence of the confessional approach in Turkish religious education. Consistent with this attitude, non‐Islamic religions are generally externalized as religions. Thus, Christianity has been treated in terms of an Islamic understanding of religion, and the dominant influence of the Qur'dn and the traditional Islamic viewpoint aboutahl al‐kitab (People of the Book) has been observed.     

High school students' perceptions of EFL teacher control orientations and their English academic achievement

Background. Theories distinguish between student‐initiated and teacher‐initiated regulation of students' learning activities, or between strong, shared, or loose teacher control during the completion of learning tasks. Empirical validations for such distinctions are scarce, however. Aim. The present study aimed at (a) investigating students' perceptions of control behaviours exhibited by their English teachers; and (b) exploring the contribution of different types of teacher control behaviours to students' cognitive outcomes (English Achievement). Sample. The sample comprised 732 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students studying in three major fields of high school (Mathematics, Natural Science, and Humanities). The participants (16–17 years of age) were selected from third‐grade classes of 27 EFL teachers working in 25 high schools of 6 main different geographical regions in the Isfahan province, Iran. Method. To obtain a comprehensive picture of different control types exhibited by Iranian EFL teachers, the control subscales of the two existing questionnaires, i.e., the Questionnaire on Instructional Behaviours (QIB), adapted by Den Brok et al. (2004) and the Questionnaire on Lesson Activities (QLA) used by Den Brok (2001) were merged to form the Questionnaire of Teacher Control (QTC). The development of this Persian instrument involved several steps: translation and back translation by the researchers, one expert translator, and two EFL teachers; piloting; and a final administration of the questionnaire to the student sample. With respect to the second aim of the study, data regarding students' performances on the Standardized National English Achievement Tests were gathered from local educational offices and schools. Results and conclusion. Statistical analyses supported acceptable reliability and validity of the instrument. A main factor structure with three types of teacher control (strong/high, shared/mid, and loose/low) was found to underlie students' perceptions. The results of multi‐level analyses indicated that a relatively large amount of variance was explained by the control variables and student variables, and teacher control had a statistically significant effect on student outcomes. Students' English achievement was lowest when they felt control was their teachers' prerogative, higher when they themselves exerted their own control (low teacher control), and highest under shared (mid) control behaviours.     

Collective school-type identity: predicting students' motivation beyond academic self-concept

In Germany, according to their prior achievement students are tracked into different types of secondary school that provide profoundly different options for their future educational careers. In this paper we suggest that as a result, school tracks clearly differ in their social status or reputation. This should translate into different collective school‐type identities for their students, irrespective of the students’ personal academic self‐concepts. We examine the extent to which collective school‐type identity systematically varies as a function of the school track students are enrolled in, and the extent to which students’ collective school‐type identity makes a unique contribution beyond academic self‐concept and school track in predicting scholastic motivation. In two cross‐sectional studies a measure of collective school‐type identity is established and applied to explain motivational differences between two school tracks in Berlin. In Study 1 (N = 39 students) the content of the collective school‐type identity is explored by means of an open format questionnaire. Based on these findings a structured instrument (semantic differential) to measure collective school‐type identity is developed. In Study 2 (N = 1278 students) the assumed structure with four subscales (Stereotype Achievement, Stereotype Motivation, Stereotype Social, and Compensation) is proved with confirmatory factor analysis. This measure is used to compare the collective school‐type identity across school tracks and predict motivational outcomes. Results show large differences in collective school‐type identity between students of different school tracks. Furthermore, these differences can explain motivational differences between school tracks. Collective school‐type identity has incremental predictive power for scholastic motivation, over and above the effects of academic self‐concept and school track.     

Sexual Orientation and Human Rights in the Ethics Code of the Psychology and Counseling Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran (PCOIRI)

The aim of this study is to investigate the necessity of revising the Ethics Code of the Psychology and Counseling Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran (PCOIRI) with respect to people’s rights and dignity and to avoid unfair discriminations toward sexual orientation and gender identity. It is said that confused diagnoses; wrong decision making; unethical practice; and the subsequent harm caused to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clients result from the lack of a clear code and relevant guidelines. In addition, certain conditions in Iran (such as religious perspectives, laws, cultural biases, misunderstandings, a lack of local academic and scientific resources, and Western conspiracy theories) lead professional psychologists and researchers to avoid researching sexual minorities and gender identity, which negatively impacts the Ethics Code of the PCOIRI. Iranian and Western researchers have identified four primary sources to which psychologists and counselors can refer when faced with ethical dilemmas: developmental psychology, professional ethics codes, philosophy of psychology literature, and available researches and compilations on professional ethics. Finally it is suggested that, when dealing with homosexual clients and the related ethical dilemmas, Iranian psychologists and counselors need clear and specific guidelines and a professional ethics code developed from more appropriate reference points than legal and religious sources.     

Mental Health Counseling in the Islamic Republic of Iran: A Marriage of Religion,Science, and Practice

This article explores the state of mental health counseling in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Topics that are addressed include training of clinicians, theoretical developments in Islamic‐based theories of psychology, and issues related to the practice of counseling. Counseling issues in the Islamic Republic of Iran are influenced by its unique culture and history. A discussion of issues related to the prevalence and treatment of addiction is included.     

霍梅尼伊斯兰革命思想研究

霍梅尼伊斯兰革命思想是在伊朗反对君主专制、反帝反殖的历史进程中产生并形成的。霍梅尼对伊斯兰教什叶派传统教义的创新,既体现了他对君主专制和政教关系的看法,也包括了他对教法学家社会地位的思考,以及未来国家治理机制的构思。霍梅尼关于建立伊斯兰政府、改革伊斯兰教育以及输出伊斯兰革命等思想,对伊朗产生了极其重要的影响。其在教育上的主张,对革命后初期伊朗的文化和科学发展带来了消极影响。教法学家权威统治的政治纲领,奠定了伊朗政教关系的基调,也给伊朗的未来发展带来了巨大争论。     

Muslim youth and consumerism: a study of Islamic street wear

Drawing on a framework that goes beyond the usual securitization lens and that includes other neglected sociological dynamics, namely consumerism and individualization, this article explores an overlooked form of dress in the research on Islamic dress in the West which is Islamic street wear. This analysis interrogates what Islamic street wear reveals, in terms of identity, about the experience of young Muslims living as a minority in secular spaces. Various messages collected from message T-shirts are deconstructed to precisely highlight the effect of these different dynamics on the articulation of identities by young Muslims. A theoretical framework grounded in the notion of hybridity guides a systematic content analysis of the messages. The analysis of these messages reveals the strong individualization of faith deriving from consumerist patterns, the rather limited expression of the controversial “ummatic” loyalty to Muslims worldwide and the assertion of pride in Muslim identity.     

Gender role identity among adolescent Muslim girls living in the U.S.

Gender role identity is acquired through exposure to societal expectations and beliefs about behaviors and characteristics appropriate for males and females. This study examined influences on gender identity among ninety-six Muslim adolescent girls living in the U.S. and attending an Islamic high school. Over three-quarters of the sample characterized themselves as Middle-Eastern or Arab-American. Participants completed a survey in English or Arabic containing background questions, the Bern Sex Role Inventory (Bern, 1974), the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1992), and a religiosity scale. These young women had comparable femininity scores, but higher masculinity scores than Bern's normative female samples. Results also indicated that those girls who had lived in the U.S. for longer periods reported more masculine attributes. Greater sense of belonging to one's ethnic group and greater religiosity were associated with greater femininity. Thus, identification with one's own culture, adherence to religious practices, and exposure to foreign cultural values were related to gender role identity.     

Thinking groups: Rhetorical enactment of collective identity in three Israeli Kibbutzim

The present paper reports a case study about public deliberations in three Israeli kibbutzim regarding a disputed school issue: whether to maintain a traditional in-kibbutz high school despite a heavy financial burden or to close it and send kibbutz youths to a public regional school The results served as a demonstration of a 'thinking group' (i.e. of how the collective aims of a group are achieved by the coordinated rhetorical behaviour of individuals according to the formal rules of the collective deliberations). First, video-recordings of six general assembly meetings in which the issue was discussed was analyzed as to their argumentative content. Second, the extracted arguments were presented to a sample of 342 kibbutz members to capture the distribution of opinions in the population. It is proposed that most kibbutz members were willing to preserve their collective living and saw the closure of their in-kibbutz school as a threat to their traditional collective identity. We observed a distinct form of public rhetoric during the deliberations in the general meetings which provides a podium for the disputed opinions, preserves the kibbutz shared identity representation and avoids social friction.