How ‘good’ or ‘bad’ Others can be: national identity and intercultural encounters in the Iranian protectionist educational policies

ABSTRACT Intercultural communicative competence has been offered as an open-minded replacement for ego-centric biases stemming from dogmatic national prejudice and its associated self-aggrandisement. While being a commendable proposal, its implementation in foreign language education has not been a widespread success story. Recent attempts to theorise intercultural communicative competence seem to emphasise negotiability in communication at the expense of some persistent issues, such as (cultural/national) identity. This article examines the prospects of intercultural communication in Iranian language policy as a country with a history of troubled encounters with foreign powers, culminating in protectionist approaches to nationalism, identity and the treatment of Others.