UNESCO’s Peace Education Themes in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Prospective Document for 20 Years

 Being a basic principal and value in an individual’s personal and social life, peace is a pure, intimate feeling experienced by everyone. It is also a requirement for the continuity of an individual, a generation or a nation’s life. In other words, man’s survival as a whole depends on peace. Therefore, education attempts to detect the causes of war and conflict and provide the solutions to these problems.  The notary and documentary sources of the Islamic Republic of Iran: “The Prospective Document for 20 Years” (2004), the “Educational General Goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran (2006) and the “High School General Goals” (2006) are based on the seven peace factors envisaged by UNESCO, i.e., “human rights and democracy”, “solidarity and cooperation”, “preserving cultures”, “self and others”, “internationalism”, “protecting environment” and “spirituality”. Using a qualitative methodology, this paper aimed at studying these factors in the three aforementioned documents, and in the teaching materials for Iranian children and adolescents.  The results indicated that “human rights and democracy”, “solidarity and cooperation” and “preserving cultures” were the three most frequent factors considered in the prospective document for 20 years, while, “Internationalism” was completely neglected. On the other hand, in the Educational General Goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran all factors had less frequency compared to the “self and others” which had the most frequency. Moreover, in the “High school General Goals”, this factor had the most frequency, whereas, “internationalism” and “protecting the environment” showed the least frequenies.