Unmasking the mirage: A critical examination of Iranian higher education policies on the educated person through Wilkinson’s Islamic critical realism

Abstract

This paper applies Wilkinson’s Islamic critical realism to analyze Iran’s higher education policies concerning the ideal of the “educated person.” Drawing on three key policy documents—the Strategic Transformation Document of Science and Technology, the Comprehensive Scientific Map of the Country, and the Document on the Islamization of Universities—the study identifies two dominant yet fundamentally conflicting orientations: economic and religious. Using the seven thematic elements of Islamic critical realism as an analytic framework, the paper highlights deep tensions between these orientations, as well as further inconsistencies across policy aims. These include mismatches between employment and technology goals, the Islamization of science and market-driven reforms, Islamic social ideals and neoliberal imperatives, and the aspiration for entrepreneurial graduates versus prevailing university conditions. The findings indicate that these unresolved contradictions produce an unstable system that imposes a double burden on students and faculty while generating mission ambiguity for universities. Ultimately, the policies fail to reconcile their divergent aims, undermining the possibility of cultivating an integrated ideal of the educated person as both economically productive and religiously committed.