Woman, Life, Freedom as a Praxis: Social Transformation and Learning in Iran through Jina’s movement

• In Event: The Intersection of Social Movements and Education Beyond Borders: A Comparative International Education Perspective

Proposal

Since the constitutional movement in 1900’s, where the “modern” concept of democratic participation and mass schooling emerged in Iran, many social movements have been mutually connected to the culture of educational institutions, especially through teachers’ and students’ activism. Similarly, the education system has undergone significant changes since then, with each historical period being influenced by the ideology of the ruling state at the time.
After 1979, education system in Iran has experienced a cleansing process (i.e., purging of Westernized influence), followed by an Islamization of the education system through a “cultural revolution” in higher education system (1980-1983) and structural changes in K-12 (1985-1988). Despite the state ideology dominating the education system after the revolution and carrying the influence of gendered capitalism, schools in Iran have still been a site for complex and contradictory forms of resistance. During Jina’s movement, however, this resistance expanded its scope through the activism of educators and students by their direct participation in the movement, and the circulation of its feminist ideas and ideals among the young generations in educational spaces.
Jina’s movement started on September 16, 2022. This movement started in the form of massive street protests after the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, named Jina (Mahsa) Amini, when she was in the custody of Iranian morality police because of her loose hijab. Following that, Iranians started a large-scale protest across the country in response to the brutality of the moral police. The street protests immediately expanded in size and diversity of protesters across Iran for three months. But with large scale state violence, the street protests are now replaced by resisting the system in different forms such as civic disobedience and contestation of the school rules. This feminist movement, led by women, has created a process of conscientization that is intergenerational and connects Iranian diaspora, youths, LGBTQ+ community at the intersection of gender, sex, race, class, and religious beliefs.
This panel discusses the implications of Jina’s movement in Iran on formal education through its key actors, including students and teachers in secondary-level education. In this panel, I will rely on various theoretical frameworks, including feminist transnationalism and critical education theory. Applying these theoretical frameworks and through a critical discourse analysis of teachers’ statements and youth self-produced media, I will discuss how this feminist movement in Iran is interconnected with educational spaces through youth and teacher activism.
More specifically, in this panel, I will explore Freire’s concept of “revolution praxis,” meaning “reflection and action directed at the structure to be transformed” (Freire, 1970, p.126), by focusing on conscientization of Iranians through the movement’s slogan “woman, life, freedom” as a praxis. Unpacking this concept is critical in understanding alternatives and new definitions of modernity in a dialogue of South-to-South, as this slogan was first coined by Kurdish women’s resistance in Rojava. This is an important concept to reflect on as a step toward understanding the relationship between social movements, resistance, and creation of alternatives through an educational lens.

Author

• Elnaz Safarha, University of Maryland College of Education