Social Problems of Iran
Year:2017 | Volume:8 | Issue:2 |Papers Count:9

Ethnic diversity in Iran on one hand, and attempts to create a coherent national identity since the first Pahlavi era on the other, raise the question of how ethnic and national identities are associated in Iran. Although there have been random studies concerned directly and indirectly with issues at hand, the findings, generally, have not yet been conclusive. Therefore, this paper yields a meta-analysis of the findings of 50 research articles dealing with the question of the relationship between the two identity types in Iran. The findings suggest that ethnicity is a more sensitive issue among Kurd and Arab citizens. Research problem, in the current study, further, is to provide and account for “ why” and “ how” of ethnic identify activation and the role of media in this regard. Forty percent of the articles treated both identities the same and forty-eight percent of them viewed the media and globalization as the factors contributing to the activation of ethnic identity. In all the papers, national identity was deemed multiple and combinatorial, and only for Kurds and Arabs, belonging to their ethnic identity was stronger than their national identity. A positivistic approach and quantitative method, and in particular, the use questionnaires were a characteristic feature of the research sample.

Symbolizing social exclusion in modern society, “ begging” is often associated with various reproducing factors such as government, people and beggars. Due to citizens’ role in reproduction of begging, current research studies citizens’ approach to begging and its typology in three dimensions of attitudes, tendency and action. Present study was conducted using a survey method and a questionnaire instrument was distributed among 600 male and female citizens, aged 15 to 65 years old, in Tehran city who were selected through multi-stage cluster of systematic random and simple random sampling methods. The results showed that in terms of helping beggars, four types of citizens are recognizable, including mighty helpers, ordinary helpers, neutral and indifferent helpers, and non-helpers and relative majority of them are among ordinary helpers. Also, there is a relationship between “ citizens helping beggars” and attitude towards begging action, tendency towards helping beggars, belief in prevalence of poverty in community, belief in role of people in expanding begging and the sense of duty toward helping beggars. Results also indicate that although the general flow of citizens' attitudes towards begging action is negative and identify begging as immoral, non-professional, rooted in individual reasons, lacking positive effect for helpers and so on, but approach of a group of respondents is somewhat paradoxical. This group, while believing that helping beggars results in expansion and deepening of this phenomenon in society and ultimately hurts individuals and society, they still believe that the beggars need some kind of pity and help, and helping them is a human and religious duty and therefore obligatory.

Curiosity about corruption is among the oldest questions that have preoccupied the human mind that has, in recent years, not only remained fresh but also has become even more important and essential. What is problematic is the fact that field works that have been carried out concerning this issue have often addressed organizational corruption and its consequences. In the present article, acknowledging the results of those studies, the focus is on social and cultural factors that influence the attitudes of people concerning corruption. Utilizing the rational choice theory, social dilemma theory, and game theory, concepts such as altruistic preference, freeriding preference, value of personal advancement, declining of corruption notoriety, religiosity, and instrumental rationality were constructed. Research method was survey and 400 individuals were selected as the sample, using a multiple cluster sampling technique. The results showed that except for the value of personal advancement and religiosity, other independent variables were significantly associated with dependent variable, even though the level and direction of the associations were not the same. Results of regression analysis indicated that variables such as freeriding preference, declining of corruption notoriety, and instrumental rationality were more influential in the development of attitudes towards corruption.

Establishing security in urban structure and having citizens enjoyed feeling of security is important and are considered as the main factors/elements of sustainable social development. The aim of the current study is to investigate fear of aggression in Khorramabad City. To achieve this goal, social capital theory is applied as the theoretical framework. The research method used in the study is of survey type. The required data were collected from a sample of 245 subjects through a structured questionnaire. Pearson-test, t-test, one-way analysis of variance, chef, multiple regression and structural equation modeling with Lisrel software were used to analyze the data. The findings of the study show that the harassment of teenage boys, harassment of girls and women and extortion are the most important indicators of fear of aggression. The results of the test of the hypotheses indicate that there is a significant relationship between “ fear of aggression” and variables of the local participation (-. /57), observing internalized norms (-. /44), local trust (-. /58), tribal attachment (-. /46), age (. /31) and the length of residence in a district (-/24). Similarly, the results of the regression analysis suggest that the variables of observing internalized norms, local trust, tribal attachment and age explain % 58 of the changes in fear of harassment.

Present study aimed to investigate the relationship between university atmosphere and the value system with tendency to emigration among Semnan University students. The method of research was descriptive-correlational. The study population consisted of university students of Semnan (13089 students). Using random stratified sampling and Morgan table, 384 of them were selected as sample. Measurement tools included questionnaire of tendency to emigration (Janalizadeh et al, 2014), questionnaire of university atmosphere (Nosrati et al, 2015), and questionnaire of Value Survey (Schwartz, 2004). Reliability was calculated with Cronbach alpha and was respectively (82. 0), (87/0) and (91/0) for each instrument. Based on research findings the tendency of migration among students was ranging from moderate to high. Also, all dimensions of the university atmosphere and value system showed relationship with and were able to forecast students’ ’ tendency to migrate.

A review of recent research studies on gender differences in environmental issues found that women report stronger care about environment than men. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to identify subjective orientations of women towards environmental issues and their related actions. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews, and data analyzing, the authors found that although women express strong concerns, but because of some structural and cultural factors, these concerns don’ t have any effective role in their everyday behaviors. The output of this contradiction between subjective orientations and actual behavior leads to creation of “ tragedy of environmental culture” .

In recent years “ emigration” from Iran has become a common behavior among a lot of young specialists and students. According to statistics, Iran is among countries that have high and increasing rate of trained human resource migration. Considering the importance of young skilled human resource role in national development, especially in the socio-historical opportunity called "demographic window", the reason of migration is a significant and important subject to study. Taking up structure-agency approach, current research studies meaning system changes, identity changes and identity reflection in context of national and transnational changes in order to explore deeper reasons of influential factors on migration among higher education students. The method of this research is survey and it has 272 samples from 4 state universities in Tehran which are selected through Cochran formula, using cluster sampling. The outcomes of statistical analysis showed that about 41. 5% of students, have a great tendency to emigrate and increase in reflexivity resulted in increase in migration tendency and vice versa, increased possibility of practical realization of reflexive identity resulted in its decrease. There was a significantly meaningful negative relationship between feeling ontological security as an intermediate variable, with a tendency to emigration (the dependent variable). Based on the results of multiple regression, the following variables have the greatest impact on attitude to emigration: practical reflexive identity, ontological security, marital status, employment status which have been proposed as the predictor variables for the dependent variable. According to the theoretical approach, possibility of practical realization of reflexive identity, completes its mental reflexivity process and finally, creates the ontological security and feeling safe positioning in the living space. Therefore, in order to control the tendency of educated young people to emigrate and positively confront escape attempts, the feasibility of realizing the practical dimensions of reflexive identity should be considered. There also should be serious activities on organizing and improving life status in terms of marriage conditions and securing employment.

This paper is a theoretical analysis that highlights a conceptual framework combined of "Iranian Modernism" and "Egocentric Rationality" in order to explain social pathologies in Iran. Current paper climes that a specific representation of modernism in Iran has resulted in formation of a special kind of rationality mixed with modern instrumental rationality and modern individualism which is in line with "Iranian historical egocentrism" and "individuation". This combination has brought about a "black rationality" which is highly individualistic, narcissistic, competitive, calculative, interest seeker, goal oriented, neutral and indifferent to social outcomes of his actions. Because of absence of modern institutions that can limit such rationality, weakening of traditional morals and lack of alternative modern morality this framework has become a basis for action in a large part of society. Those social pathologies which are generally attributed as social immoralities are consequences of this form of rationality.