Contemporary Iranian Government’s Female Higher Education Policy And Its Effects From The Perspective Of Educational Equity

Iran as an Islamic country,the government imposes certain restrictions on women,making it difficult for women to enjoy same rights as men in many areas.In the field of education,whether women enjoy the equal rights has received high attention from scholars.Based on the educational equity theory proposed by Yuan,a Chinese educational expert,this paper discusses the Iranian government’s female higher education equity policy and its various impacts since 1979,and evaluates the overall realization of the policy goals.Combining pedagogy and sociology research methods,with reference to Persian,English and Chinese materials,this paper tries to reflect comprehensively and objectively the development of contemporary Iranian women’s higher education and its impacts on women’s self-cognition,social cognition about women and gender relations through questionnaire survey and statistical analysis.With the efforts of the government and women’s rights activists,remarkable achievements have been made in equity of opportunity and process enjoyed by women during the stage of higher education.Through the higher education,women’s self-cognition has been significantly improved.But the social cognition about women has not changed obviously.Under the guidance of the supreme leaders’ thoughts,the administrators attach more importance to women’s family value than their social value.The aim of government’s female higher education policy is cultivating “better mother”.Therefore,its’ development hasn’t obviously promoted women’s work condition.It’s difficult for highly educated women to realize their social value.Two contradictions constitute between women’s self-cognition and social cognition about women,between women’s social value and their family value.This will change the gender relations.Iranian government needs to balance these contradictions so as to bring women’s full power in the development of country.