Objectives To demonstrate that qualitative research is both possible and desirable in closed, nondemocratic settings such as Iran, research sites seemingly hostile to the outside investigator. Methods Using an ethnographical approach consisting of document analysis, semi‐structured interviews, and participant observation, the project documents the development of postrevolutionary schooling in Iran by mapping ruptures within the pedagogical state's project following the 1979 Revolution as well as gaps between the state's formal goals and the private use and appropriation of the public school system by ordinary families from below. Results A willingness to embrace contingency and flexibility in the field yielded an original and empirically rich data set that in turn inspired four general rules for research in authoritarian and nonauthoritarian countries: do not panic; make it boring; self‐reflect; and panic, if just a little. Conclusions By engaging in research in authoritarian and nonauthoritarian settings, researchers demonstrate a commitment to drawing out local complexity and agency, producing findings that are likely to unsettle and disrupt existing literatures drenched with the weight of tropes and unexamined assumptions, incrementally leading to analysis that is restorative of “the local” even as it informs nonlocal audiences outside of the case.

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Malekzadeh’s article traces the development of the social, religious, cultural, and political messages that have shaped the image of the child and childhood within postrevolutionary Farsi textbooks (grades 1–3) produced by the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past thirty years (1979–2008). More than just primers, Farsi textbooks serve as the foundation of the state’s project to produce the New Islamic Citizen by providing young students with their first exposure to the ideology of the Revolution and the offcial values of the Islamic Republic. This article demonstrates that the content of Iran’s postrevolutionary curriculum, as seen through the prism of the concept of childhood, has been highly politicized and historically contingent. Representations of childhood are absent from the post-1979 textbooks until the mid-1990s. Since 2003, Iran’s curriculum has embraced childhood as a generalized experience, shared equally by Iranian children of all genders and backgrounds. At the same time, textbook authors attach particularistic qualities to the transition from childhood to adulthood, depicting the process of growing up as a distinctly gendered experience. The article concludes with a consideration of how social and economic structures—specifically Iran’s marriage and labor markets—are artificially extending the experience of childhood. Faced with high rates of unemployment, more and more young Iranians are staying at home with their parents as they extend their education well into their twenties and thirties, trapped in a state of “waithood,” a phenomenon that has done more to shape and refashion the contours of childhood than any of the textbooks produced during the postrevolutionary period.

Amblyopia is a common visual impairment in developing countries and a major but neglected health issue. Definite diagnosis in children is difficult due to lower cooperation in this age range. Electroretinography (ERG) may be a useful objective method for diagnosis of amblyopia. In this study, we compare the ERG findings in amblyopic and non-amblyopic children. It is concluded that ERG is a sensitive and objective diagnostic test for amblyopia. It is recommended that ERG be used as a quick tool for diagnosis of amblyopia in children.

Acute transient swelling of the parotid glands during or after surgery under general anesthesia was prescribed by previous colleagues. This complication is called anesthesia mumps. We present a case of bilateral parotid swelling noticed early in the intraoperative period. A 52-year-old male patient was scheduled for internal fixation of right tibial fracture under general anesthesia. The surgical procedure was uneventful and lasted for 2.5 hours. But 30 minutes after the beginning of surgery, swelling of both parotid regions was noted. In the recovery unit, the patient had moderate swelling of both parotids, expanding down to the mandibular angle with no complaint of pain, difficulty in swallowing, and dyspnea. Swelling decreased in size after five days and resolved in seven days. It is important to recognize anesthesia mumps as a rare complication that can appear during surgery or in the early postoperative period.