Social Problems of Iran
Year:2014 | Volume:4 | Issue:2|Papers Count:7

The need for human interaction is considered as an innate human need. As human beings bear considerable differences in terms of language, race, ethnicity, culture, society and economy, the only approach to establishing appropriate human relations would be social tolerance.Therefore the present study aims to investigate social tolerance and its dimensions among ethnic groups in Isfahan city. To this end, a survey study was conducted whereby a number of 398 Isfahani citizens over 18 years old were interviewed. The results showed that social tolerance is affected by ethnicity, ethnic socialization, ethnocentrism and cultural capital. There is a significant and negative relationship between ethnic socialization and ethnocentrism. The obtained results show that there is an above average rate of social tolerance as big as 2.76 (within a range of 1 to 5) among Iranian ethnicities. Level of ethnocentrism among Iranian ethnicities is upper than the average and the ethnicities have no significant difference in tolerance and acceptance of each other.

The aim of the current research is to study the effective factors on social consensus among Yazdi citizens. Social consensus means public agreement on social rules and principles that every society for enduring and stability needs it. The methods of research used in the present research was survey and the main data gathering technique in this research was questionnaire with sufficient validity and reliability. The sample size included 316 Yazdi citizens that were selected through clustering sample method.The obtained results showed that there is a meaning ful relationship between variables of social participation, age, marital status, housing ownership, income and religiosity with social consensus. But no meaningful relationship was observed between using from mass media, ethnicity, education and sex with social consensus. According to variance analysis results, the variables of social participation, income and marital status explained 22.7 percent of the dependent variable variance.

Sociologists define the social problem as a situation that contradicts values, blocks the achievement of goals, and involves dangers for humanity, which have a social origin and are reform able, improvable, and changeable. Based on this definition, the purpose of the current paper is identification and prioritization of social problems of the city of Shiraz and its inhabitants from the public's viewpoint. The method of the study was a survey, and the sample size, on the basis of Cochran's formula was estimated 400 individuals above 15 years old in Shiraz. The sampling method was the stratified sampling with regard to age, sex, and population ratio of each nine regions of Shiraz. The analysis of the data exploratory factor indicated that urban problems could be reduced to six factors including social pathologies, organizational anomies, as well as economic, cultural, and environmental problems, and immigration. These factors could explain 54.74 percent of the variance of urban social problems. The most important problems of the citizens themselves included unemployment, inflation, and social insecurity respectively.

The current study examines the university students' attitudes about the socialization and political resocialization in the conscription. The main variables in this study are: the effect of the conscription on attitude toward the family, friends and environment, social and political functions of conscription in three levels of political system, political recognition and political authorities. The findings show that most of students agree that the conscription affects on the students’ attitude toward the family, friends and environment and its social functions, but they disagree about its effect on the political resocialization. Besides, there are significant differences regarding the students’ status about the impact of conscription on the sparticpants’ attitude toward the family, friends and environment, and conscription social and political functions to political system, political recognition and political authorities.

The present article is based on the demographic transition theory and analyzes the main characteristics and trends of changes in the contemporary family and divorce phenomenon from a socio-cultural perspective. It discusses both global patterns and focuses specifically in the context of Iran. The existing literature identifies two major patterns: while the family was highly valued in the past, the contemporary human society has witnessed substantial changes in the value and formation of the family. The changes have been mainly reflected in an increasing rate of divorce so that the modern society has been termed as ‘The Age of Divorce’ and ‘The Divorce Revolution’. Moreover, the modern society has experienced the emerging forms of family formations: single-parent family, one-child family, childlessness, and cohabitation. According to the demographic transition theory, these revolutionary changes of the contemporary family are mainly associated with the process of modernization and its major components (individualism, industrialization, and urbanization). The results of this study show that while these family changes exist overwhelmingly in the developed and industrialized societies, the changes become increasingly more visible in the developing countries. This particularly applies to the increasing trend of divorce rate. Finally, the results of the study addressed the high value of family characteristics in the Iranian culture which provides the opportunity to deal with the divorce phenomenon from a policy-making perspective.

The present paper represents an attempt to study bureaucracy and work alienation in the administrative organizations of Iran. Therefore, the current research aims to examine how the bureaucratic characteristics of an organization affect work alienation. This research was carried out through the survey method. The sample included 400 persons were selected from the staff population of 30 governmental organizations in Ahvaz through stratified cluster sampling method.The results show that there are negative and significant relationships between technical competenc, job codification and work alienation. While there are negative and significant relationships between the other characteristics including hierarchy of authority, impersonality, division of labor, rule observation and work alienation. The multiple regression analysis method also indicates that technical competence, hierarchy of authority and job codification have the highest effects on work alienation. Also, despite of important role of education on work alienation, bureaucratic characteristics of organizational structure are significantly more important than background characteristics for explaining work alienation.

The present research is designed to investigate the key role of honesty, as a moral norm, for social order. The study approach is based on the theory of social order, applying the multiple case study method for illustrating practical examples. Four dimensions of honesty are presented including substantive and procedural elements, leading to obeying this norm vastly. The findings through stepwise regression equations show that in family level, commitment, attachment, and extended trust are factors affecting commitment to honesty norm among youths. In school level, student identity, low school violence, no fear of getting low scores, as well as considering the equity norm are essentials for improving the honesty norm. And finally in society level, the regression equations indicate that social justice and obeying the norm of honesty are the key variables to expand the honesty norm among youths.