Vol. 6 · No. 1 · 2002

Mohammad Shahbazi

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This is the second part of a two-part paper, based on some of my findings in the course of research undertaken in Iran over a period of twenty-four months (1993-1995).1 On 6 September 1993, I began investigating a state-supported formal education programme provided to the Qashqa'i, a predominantly nomadic, pastoralist, Turkic-speaking2 Shia Muslim community of more than half a million (Gharakhlou n.d.: 39), living in southwestern Iran. Much of these data were used to write a doctoral dissertation focusing upon Qashqa'i schoolteachers: the roles they played in the processes of formally educating Qashqa'i children, the ways they prepared their students for new roles within a transforming Iran, and the extent to which they enculturated them with values cherished by earlier generations.