Analysis of the Position of Women's Education in Iran during the Past One Hundred Years; An Interdisciplinary Approach

Abstract

Iran is a developing country in which the women despite the growth of rate of education in two recent decades have suffered a vast gender gap in education, during the past one hundred years. The aim of this paper was to present a portrait of educational position of women in Iran, during the past one hundred years and to analyze the obstacles of females in to achieve to equal educational opportunities with males in this period. The main questions in this paper were: has there been any different between women and men in education in Iran, during the past one hundred years? If yes, how much vast is the gap? What are the effective factors in this process? For to answer these questions, I studied the education position of women as a position relative to men' education is disadvantaged socially, culturally, politically, and economically. I investigated the obstacles of gender-equitable education such as the lack of knowledge and awareness, societal, cultural, political and economic climate. In social and cultural dimensions, I specially emphasized on traditions; religious norms; class status, family values and gender socialization. In the political dimension, I focused on the social-cultural structure of governments and governors attitude about women, women's abilities and their capacities. Finally; I analyzed the policies and strategies that the governments have applied for to decrease the gender gap in education. The most important of resources were statistical information which is gathered every ten years by statistical center of Iran. The main reference of this information was statistical publications of statistical center of Iran and especially statistical year book of the country.