STRATEGY FOR CULTURE
Year:2018 | Volume:10 | Issue:40 |Papers Count:7

Many sociologists since late 20th century have embarked on a pathological study of their discipline and raised serious criticisms against the existing sociology. Among them, Jonathan Turner went beyond a pathological analysis and offered a curative plan for the improvement of sociology. In Turner’s viewpoint, the fundamental problem of sociology has its roots in the gap between theory and research and action, which has hindered sociology from becoming a cumulative science. If sociology fails to become a cumulative science, it cannot leave any real impact on the social world. Social engineering, whose existential essence is “social action” or practice inspired by sociological theory, is the most appropriate approach for creating a difference in the real world and the social world. Engineering approach in sociology depends on the development of clearer and more precise theories, verification of such theories and inclination of actors to apply these theories when they are dealing with the problems of their clients or employers. Thus, social engineering can make the mutual relationship between the theory and research inevitable and connect them to each other and to action. According to Turner, the most encouraging way to reintegrate the theory and research in sociology is action; while the best way for using sociological action is adoption of social engineering approach by sociologists.

The present paper is an attempt to find out whether collective memory is a paradigmatic or nonparadigmatic field of study. Therefore, while introducing the collective memory field of study as a new approach in the social sciences, attempts have been made to offer a systematic assessment of the weak and strong points of the theoretical and practical approaches that have been employed in this field. In this regard, Ritzer’s paradigm theory has been used as a theoretical framework. Hence, in the first place, the available literature related to collective memory studies and the four constituting components of a paradigm, i. e. (exemplar, image of the subject matter, theories and methods) were reviewed. In the next step, the hypothesis of some scholars who argue that this field of study is nonparadigmatic were assessed. Then, a new formulation of the theoretical developments, methodological strategies and challenges that this field faces in its progress was presented. Finally, concomitant with these challenges, some suggestions have been made to face the said challenges in order to maximize the theoretical cohesion of the collective memory studies.

The conflict between life and death, denial of death and the necessity of continuation of life have forced human beings to accept the death. As a result, human beings always move on the borderline between acceptance and denial of death. Moreover, what make death acceptable or deniable are socially constructed meanings of death, which are transferred to the society through various processes of learning. The results of experimental phenomenological analysis of reactions of eight women respondents of the city of Mashhad to death, who were selected with the maximum level of variation in their religiosity, show that first of all, the semantic units of reaction to death can be classified under three main themes, including “readiness for death”, “knowing the time of death” and “willing to die”, the three of which signify the more general meaning of the concept of “acceptance or denial of death”. Secondly, religious understandings have a profound impact on experience of reaction to death. Religious people are more inclined towards accepting the death while non-religious people are more inclined towards denying the death. Continuous thinking about the death, inclination towards knowing more about death and making the preparations for death are among the signifiers of acceptance of death among the religious respondents and substitution of thinking about the death, disinclination towards knowing about death and lack of preparation for the death among the non-religious respondents are clear connotations of marginalization and denial of the death.

The stage of implementation enjoys a crucial significance in the process of policymaking, for the real fruits of the policy are borne at this stage. The present paper is an attempt to offer an interactive implementation network through which the national cultural policies can be implemented more successfully. Thematic analysis method, consisting of three stages, i. e. descriptive coding, interpretative coding and development of universal themes, has been used. In order to develop a model for the implementation of national cultural policies, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the experts, policymakers, and cultural executives until data saturation was achieved. The results of the research included 548 codes categorized into 72 descriptive codes, 43 interpretative codes and 20 universal themes. Establishment of relations between these themes led to the development of a network for interactive implementation of national cultural policies. In the proposed model, the implementation of policy takes place in two stages: “planning and establishment of a support network”, and “launching of the plans”. In the first stage, which contains four steps, i. e. “decision-making”, “decision-taking and adjustment of operational plans”, “establishment of software support network” and “establishment of hardware support network”, four actors, i. e. cultural policymakers, cultural elites, cultural managers, and governmental cultural experts, play their roles. In the stage of launching the plans, the governmental cultural executives, private cultural organizations, non-governmental organizations, promoters of culture and finally the society (people), through their cordial cooperation and using all the capacities of the country, engage in interactive implementation of cultural policies. The roles of the said eight actors have been clearly explained. In this model, people, as the ninth actor, through playing four roles, i. e. executive, observer, objective and index, participate in the implementation of the cultural policies.

Social networks are new media allowing people to produce their own massages and share different aspects of their lives and lifestyles with others through demonstrating pictures and texts. The objective of this research is to offer a typology of representation of lifestyle by Iranian youth in their Facebook pages. To achieve this objective, the Facebook homepages of 44 young people aging 15-35 were analyzed through qualitative content analysis using targeted sampling method. The findings of the research indicate that people exhibit their lifestyles in the Facebook mostly through five components: dressing and makeup styles, leisure hours, interpersonal relations, nutrition style and decoration of their homes. Based on the interest of people in representing each of the mentioned components, three types of lifestyle representation in the Facebook were identified and classified: self-exhibitionists, leisure hours-exhibitionists and relationship-exhibitionists. It was found that self-exhibitionists were further classified into three categories: body-exhibitionists, garment-exhibitionists, and specialization-exhibitionists. The leisure hour-exhibitionists are interested in exhibiting a happy and leisure-based lifestyle. The relationship-exhibitionists represent their lifestyles on the side of others and among others.

Happiness given the importance of social happiness in Iran, several studies have been conducted in this field in recent years. Due to the abundance and diversity of studies conducted in the field of social happiness, it is necessary to conduct a combinative research, like meta-analysis, in this area. The main question of this research is: What are the most important factors affecting social happiness in the findings of researches conducted in Iran? The population of the study consists of almost all research papers that studied social happiness and were published between 2001 and 2015 in Iran. Finally 24 researches were selected and analyzed by Comprehensive Meta-analysis software (CMA2). The results showed that life satisfaction, self-esteem, religious and social relations – compared to other variables – have significant impacts on social happiness in Iran. The results of effect size showed that the relationship between life satisfaction and social happiness in the studies reviewed is positive and high level (effect size = 0. 61). Also the relationship between self-esteem and social happiness in the studies reviewed is positive and high level (effect size = 0. 58). Random combined effects show that the relationship between religious and social happiness, which stands at 0. 39, is positive and moderate. The relationship between social relations and social happiness is also positive and moderate (effect size = 0. 37).

Justice in many studies has been introduced as a variable that prepares the ground for inhibition of deviant behaviors. Nevertheless, the findings of various studies conducted on this issues show that the obtained results are sometimes inconsistent with each other. Therefore, the present research was conducted with the objective of studying the moderating role of five cultural values, including, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, collectivism/individualism and work dynamic on the relationship between perceived justice and deviant behaviors. The research sample consisted of 288 respondents who were selected through convenience sampling technique. Research instruments included Cultural Values Questionnaire, Perceived Justice Questionnaire and Deviant Behaviors Questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analysis was employed to analyze the garnered data. The results indicated that in high masculinity/femininity and power distance there is a positive significant relationship between distributive justice and deviant behaviors toward the organization, and in high masculinity/femininity, there is a positive significant relationship between distributive justice and deviant behaviors toward individuals. In low work dynamic compared to high work dynamic, there is a stronger relationship between procedural justice and deviant behaviors toward the organization. Also in low uncertainty avoidance, there is a positive significant relationship between procedural justice and deviant behaviors toward individuals, and in low masculinity/femininity there is a negative significant relationship between procedural justice and deviant behaviors toward individuals, but in high masculinity/femininity there is a positive significant relationship between procedural justice and deviant behaviors toward individuals. . The results of this study showed that the cultural values can affect the normal relations between perceived fairness and deviant behaviors. The findings of the present study are highly important for future research and theorizing in Iran.