STRATEGIC RESEARCH ON SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN IRAN
Year:2020 | Volume:9 | Issue:2|Papers Count:7

Introduction With increasing water crisis and rural poverty, especially in arid and semi-arid areas where famine and floods have increased, access to safe water for livestock and home consumption has become more important than access to education and health services. The water crisis has gradually endangered food security and social satisfaction and has emerged in the form of migration, social conflict, and violence. In Iran, the water crisis has led to public dissatisfaction. Recently, there have been some protests in various cities of Iran as a result of the water crisis, water transfer, and related policies. This is especially the case in small towns and cities that are among the driest areas (including Isfahan, Khuzestan, Borazjan, etc. ). In the light of water shortage and migration problems in rural areas of Mamasani County, the purpose of this study is to provide a critical ethnography analysis to investigate the challenges associated with the water crisis in the villages of Mamasani County. The study of this issue at the micro-level is important because in the study area, in addition to water shortage, actions and activities done to manage water resources have led to some conflicts between users and policymakers and potentially have created many problems and complications for the rural residents. Materials and Methods This research isdone usingthe critical ethnographic method. In this study, purposive sampling, which is a type of non-probability sampling, was used. The instruments used were observation, interview, and field notes. Data analysis was done through the thematic analysis method. The participants were 25 local residents of rural areas affected by the water crisis in Mamasani. In terms of employment status, 13 participants in the study were both farmers and ranchers while 7 participants were engaged only in livestock. In terms of age, the respondents were from 31 to 65 years old and their education was from illiteracy to high school diploma. In terms of the marital status, all participants were married. Discussion of Results and Conclusions In Iran, the water resources policy suffers from non-specialist decisions to solve the problems related to water resources. In fact, the governance structure of water resources, which includes many beneficial owners in the management and utilization of water resources, has led to increased competition and conflict between stakeholders in the field of water resources. In general, it can be said that the development programs of organizations and institutions have been done to control the natural environment than nature management. Therefore, environmental water crises and drying of permanent rivers in rural areas and wetlands are the results of the instrumental and technical views governing the management of water resources in order to technically control the natural environment. Through the six stages of data analysis, one thematic network was derived. The thematic network of ‘Human Water Catastrophe’ includes 28 basic codes, 10 basic teams, and 3 organizing teams (inefficient governance of water resources, vulnerability, and rural deprivation) that are formed around the axis of the comprehensive theme of ‘Human Water Catastrophe’. The frequency and severity of the water crisis in the studied villages have caused water shortage to become an unusual phenomenon and a human disaster. Catastrophe is considered an unusual phenomenon that affects the physical and social structure of societies. In addition, the thematic network analysis in this study revealed that this crisis has brought about consequences for the villagers resulting in vulnerability and rural deprivation. The critical model emerged from the rural residents' perception of the water crisis has shown that in this situation where the water crisis has some consequences for rural residents and leads to vulnerability, social disruption, rural deprivation, and reduced capacity, adaptation has taken place in areas. The studied villagers find themselves in a top-down domination relationship imposed on them by poverty and misery and find themselves trapped in environmental and structural determinism. In their view, the power structure does not try to improve their living conditions and they are abandoned and live in the insecure margin of the society.

Introduction Participation has often been considered as one of the main components and indicators of development by various thinkers and experts because social life is possible when people interact and cooperate with each other as members of one body. People's participation in the development process is so important that development is basically considered a participatory process because people's participation is the basis of social and economic development. Thematically, participation is divided into political, social, economic, and so on. Although their exact separation is difficult due to their entanglement, overlap, and complementarity, in the present study, economic participation is considered. . The benefits of participating in the development process should go to all individuals or groups involved. One of the groups participating in the development process that should have a fair share of development benefits is the category of women. Because in today's world, overcoming family, economic, cultural, and political crises and achieving sustainable development require the full participation of different groups and women are the first hope for the development of families and the growth and development of their society. Women's success not only benefits the country economically but alsoit creates social and cultural benefits. Materials and Methods: The present study seeks to investigate the semantic understanding of the experience of entrepreneur women regarding economic participation in Shiraz. The purpose of this study is to investigate what entrepreneur women understand about economic participation and what conditions, contexts, and strategies are considered important in this field. This research is based on a qualitative approach using the systematic ground theory method. The method of data collection is the semi-structured interview. The interviewees of the present study were entrepreneur women in Shiraz who were selected through purposive sampling for the interview. A total of 25 interviews were selected. In the interview processcare was taken to conduct the interviews with appropriate quality and avoiding bias in order to maintain the validity of the research. To assess the reliability, the two experts also coded several interviews and the difference between their coding results was small and negligible. The research data have been analyzed based on Strauss and Corbin’s (2012) three-stage coding approach (open, axial, and selective). The related codes were obtained focusing on a major category of organization and the main categories of research. Discussion of Results and Conclusion: After analyzing and interpreting the information extracted from the interviews regarding the entrepreneurial model of women in Shiraz, 69 sub-categories and 19 main categories were identified. The findings indicated that broken family interactions, the experience of multiple deprivations, favorable entrepreneurial spirit, and multiple sources of capital are categories that causally affect the economic participation of women entrepreneurs. The resilient femininity, integrated femininity, authoritarian parenting style and support, and lack of family support shaped the ground conditions for the economic participation of entrepreneur women. The institutional disorder, economic disorder, lack of applied skills, and a sexist work environment are interfering factors. Such factors were effective for economic success and economic participation. Women's entrepreneurship and economic participation could have a variety of consequences including attitudinal changes, identity changes, lifestyle changes, and passive lifestyle changes. Finally, it can be said that women have presented alternative female entrepreneurship as a model of economic participation, as opposed to a model based on masculine structures.

Introduction Divorce is one of the most important life events that is considered as a social issue in the world today. For whatever reasons, it may create a kind of disorder in the personalities of family members and prepare the ground for a tendency to social perversion and crime. Therefore, it is necessary to study this event and the factors that lead to it, especially when it is traditional in small communities. The desire to divorce and act on it is a phenomenon that has spread in today's societies. Researchers have studied this problem from different angles to prevent and solve it. Various factors are involved in the types of relationship and the differences between couples leading to divorce. The purpose of this study was to investigate divorce among the women, who wanted to divorce or attempted it, as well as its relationships with their social, cultural, and economic capitals in Deylam City. Materials & Methods This research was a descriptive-correlational survey. The statistical population included all married women in the port of Deylam (54 women, who wanted to divorce their husbands or were about to divorce them). The data collection tool was a questionnaire, the validity and reliability of which were confirmed through content validity and Cronbach's alpha coefficient, respectively. The obtained values were for social, cultural, and economic capitals were 0. 82, 0. 85, and 0. 92, respectively. The statistical calculations were performed using 23Spss software. Also, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was utilized for analysis with respect to normality of the research data. Discussion of Results & Conclusions The descriptive results of this research showed that 57. 3% of the respondents were less than 30 years old. In terms of literacy and education, 16. 7% of them were illiterate and about 70% of them had a diploma. In terms of employment status, 20. 4% of the women were unemployed and the rest had low-level jobs. In terms of cohabitation, 48. 1% of them had been involved in less than 2 years of cohabitation with their husbands and had tended to divorce, while the lowest rate of cohabitation was related to those, who were over 16 years old (7. 4%). In terms of having children, 22. 2% of them, who wanted to divorce, were childless and about half of them (48. 1%) had 2 children. The results of testing the hypotheses revealed a significant inverse relationship between social capital and the desire for divorce. Those with more social trust were less likely to divorce. The sense of commitment increases when there is trust and a couple's commitment to each other leads to family cohesion. This was true especially in the port of Deylam where families often knew each other and trusted in their children's marriage in a way that there was a cohesion between the families and tribes, thus preventing separation and divorce to occur. There was a significant relationship between social relationships and divorce. The more social relationships the women had, the less likely they were to divorce. According to Bourdieu, the value of a person's relationships depends on the number of connections he/she makes. The more connections there are, the greater the dependence will be,thus, strong social relationships lead to special dependence between couples with no divorce striking the mind. However, in this study, those women, who had more social participations, were more likely to get divorced. Coleman argues that the costs of cooperation will enhance if the incentive norms for social capital participation in a group are not sufficient. The increase in women's social participations may sometimes prevent them from having enough interactions with their husbands, while men in traditional societies are more willing to participate in their family affairs rather than having their wives' social participations and they would tend to get divorced if they do not understand this. In this research, there were no relationships between the components of cultural capital and the tendency to divorce. The lack of a relationship between cultural capital and divorce is so well explained by Bourdieu's theory. The port of Deylam is a traditional city where most marriages are based on family introductions. The boys and girls communicated based on their class habits, while the different cultural backgrounds between them could be neglected. Therefore, the couples had less conflicts with each other and the women adopted the procedure of adapting to their husbands’ conflicting behaviors instead of wanting to divorce. There was also no significant relationship between economic capital and divorce. Usually in traditional and small communities, including the port of Deylam, material possessions are not very different between individuals, while most families lead a simple life and are thus more satisfied. In this study, economic capital had little role in the women's objections against their living conditions. The result was that social capital provided couples with a hidden social control over the departure from norms by creating a platform of cultural and social networks and providing opportunities for them to join a group in a way that one could feel belonging to it, while filling their free times with constructive and useful activities,besides, they easily trusted others and enjoyed supports from their group networks. In such circumstances, warm family organizations were formed to prevent the damage of divorce.

Introduction: Today’s life is based on living in a media world. Media has an important effect on socialization of human beings. They can affect people’s gender role expectations. Television, satellite, the internet, magazines, and newspapers have not only controlled the entrance of information to our minds, but also made us spend a great deal of our times on them in everyday life. According to many studies, television and satellite programs such as films, serials, news, entertainments, documentaries, and advertisings are among the most widely used media with substantial impacts on people's lifestyles. The questions dealt with in this study were how and to what extent they could affect the gender role expectations of 15-year-old and older people in Yasouj City and what kind of model could be used to explain them. Materials & Methods: The current study was based on a quantitative method and a researcher-made questionnaire was used to gather the required data. The statistical population of this research included some parents with their children, who could answer the research questions, in Yasouj City. Based on the census of 2016 made by the Iranian Sencus Organization (1396), the population of Yasouj City was 134532 people with 34850 families. The research sample size was based on a "Lane" sampling table at 95% level of confidence interval (Alpha=0. 05 and N=373 people). First, the different areas of Yasouj City were identified based on a multi-stage random sampling method. Then, the questionnaires were distributed in the main streets and blocks randomly determined in each area. It was mostly tried to choose half of the parents with half of their children in the sampling process. The dependent and independent variables were gender role expectations and media utilization, including foreign and domestic media uses, respectively. The data were analyzed by using SPSS-25 and AMOS-23 statistical software. Discussion of Results and Conclusion: The model’s parameters showed the significant effects of the level of trust in television, age, cultural capital, rate of television use, rate of satellite use, and level of trust in satellite on the level of gender role expectations. These factors could explain 59% of the variance in gender role expectations. However, the effects of identifications with satellite and television on gender role expectations were not significant. The following results were obtained by performing a moderation analysis on the effects of the variable of parent-child status on the relationship between the uses of satellite and television and gender role expectations. The standard coefficient of the effect of using satellite on gender role expectations for the group of parents was-0. 32. The same effect on the use of TV was estimated to be 0. 52. However, in the group of children, these values were equal to-3. 33 and-0. 02, respectively. The effect of television use on gender role expectations among the parents was stronger than among the children. The effects of satellite use on gender role expectations at the sample level (statistical population) were not significantly different between the parents and children. According to the findings of this study, domestic media like television were promoters of traditional values to a greater extent and increased gender segregation, while such media as satellite further reduced the belief in segregation of gender roles. Another indirect and, of course, important result of this investigation was the inconsistency of the programs broadcast on the Iraninan national television with the cultural requirements, especially with regard to gender in today's world of youth as it was turned out that Iranian Radio and Television had littele effect on young people’s gender beliefs and only affected the group of parents. It could be concluded that Iranian Radio and Television could lose many of their viewers and leave the field to the influence of other media if they do not change their orientations towards gender issues.

The optimal use of human resources in the labor market requires recognizing the variables that affect individuals' job preferences. Job preferences indicate the hierarchical superiority of some characteristics of a job over other characteristics related to an individual (Amabaill, 1994: 953). In fact, job preferences demonstrate what job each person expects to get in the future according to his/her skills and education. Preferring a decent job in accordance with an individual’s skills, interests, and expertise can flourish his/her talents, accelerate the process of performing tasks, increase productivity in the society and accelerate its development wheel. However, if the job choice is not done properly, it could lead to job dissatisfaction, reduced efficiency, enhanced costs in the workplace, weakening of values, norms, and organizational goals in relation to individuals, and social distrust (Moeidfar et al., 2005: 130). The range of job characteristics includes its external and internal aspects. The external aspect is related to income, security, and job position. The internal aspect is related to the mental understanding of whether the job is inherently interesting and if it is good for the community or for others. Also, in another classification of jobs, the main features related to the aspects of job autonomy, such as independent employment opportunities and control of work organization or working time, are considered (Davoine, Erhel, and Guergoat, 2008,Handel, 2005,Ros, Schwartz, and Surkiss, 1999). Although it has been assumed that economic motivation is often important to the employed person, much research in the social sciences has shown significant changes in job-related values. The present research focused on job capacity for providing social integration, social structure of daily life, and a creative and innovative atmosphere, giving meaning to life, and contributing to the development of the society (Jahoda, 1982). Job preferences were first measured by Jurgensen at the Minnesota Gas Company in 1945 (Jurgensen, 1945) and its questionnaire was completed in 1975 (Agent, 1975). The agent-based job preference questionnaire states what one’s job preferences are in order of priority. The questions are related to promotion opportunities, type of company (public, private, or cooperative), income, type of job, job security, salary and benefits, working hours, supervisor, co-workers, and working conditions. Amabil et al. (1994) divided job preferences into two categories: internal and external preferences. Internal preferences lead to a particular job due to internal feelings like desire to succeed or desire to gain experience. Based on external preferences, a person tends to a particular profession to access external factors, such as encouragement and avoidance of punishment. In recent years, various studies have focused on job preferences in terms of importance of work quality and higher levels of job satisfaction (Pichler and Wallace, 2009,Westover, 2012), life satisfaction (Drobnič, Beham, and Präg, 2010), physical health (Aronsson and Blom, 2010), and welfare (Esser, 2017,Eurofound, 2012). Overall, individuals’ job preferences seem to be of fundamental importance in terms of work motivation and individual well-being (Esser and Lindh, 2018: 143). The main purpose of this study was to investigate young people’s job preferences and identify the socio-demographic characteristics affecting their job preferences. Also, the system of young people’s job preferences was studied and the socio-demographic characteristics affecting it were identified in Isfahan as one of the central and major cities of Iran. According to the Statistics Center of Iran (2016), the population of Isfahan Province was equal to 5120850 people, of which 1629475 people (31. 5%) were in the age group of 18-35 years. Also, the economic growth was 46. 1% based on the results of the Labor Force Survey (2020). Materials & Methods This research was based on a survey method. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire and the sample size was 400 young people aged 18-35 years in 2020. Also, a multi-stage cluster sampling proportional to the population size was undertaken using quotas. Despite the limitations of Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the questionnaires were completed in full compliance with all health protocols during the absence of critical outbreak (orange and red). For data analysis, SPSS software (version 22) and AMOS software were applied. In addition, statistical tests, including mean comparison (t-test and one-way analysis of variance), calculation of correlation coefficient (Pearson and Spearman), and regression and structural equation model were employed. The dependent variable of the research was job preference and the independent variables included education, parents' education, gender, socio-economic class, future job security, method of choosing a job, work experience, and family and friends’ guidance. In this study, to assess the young people’s job preferences, an agent questionnaire with the two items of degree of difficulty and comfort of job (having a job without stress) was utilized. In addition, 4 general factors were summarized by using factor analysis. The first factor, the economic dimension of work, which was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0. 762, included the items of income, job security, job benefits, and opportunity of job promotion. Considering the work-family balance, the second factor, which was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0. 689, included working hours during the week, possibility of balancing between work and family affairs, and workplace conditions such as distance or proximity to the residential place, leave benefits, and type of company (public, private, or cooperative). The third factor, which dealt with the social dimension of work and its characteristics and was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0. 689, consisted of co-workers’ moral characteristics, having a good and considerate supervisor, and having a job without stress and risks. The fourth factor, which was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0. 641, was the inherent nature of job, including the degree of difficulty and comfort of job, type of job, job interest, and possibility of increasing a sense of self-fulfillment. Discussion of Results & Conclusions The findings showed that the female respondents considered the dimensions of the nature of work and balance between work and family, the economic dimension of work, and the social dimension of work as important factors, while the male respondents regarded the economic dimension of work, the dimensions of the nature of work and work balance between work and family, and the social dimension of work, respectively. In fact, the priorities of the female respondents in choosing a job were interest, income, job security (having a job without stress and job risks), job conditions (work place and time), type of company (public, private, or cooperative), and the opportunity for promotion or career advancement, respectively. The priorities of the male respondents were the income, sense of job security, interest, job benefits, working conditions and hours, degree of difficulty and comfort, moral characteristics of colleagues, and type of company, respectively. The findings indicated the significant relationships of the variables of education, family and friends’ guidance, work experience, socio-economic class, job security, job selection, and gender with the mentioned dimensions of job preferences. Based on the multivariate analysis performed by using the regression and structural equation model, the variables of job security, job selection, education, and gender were identified as determinants of the dimensions of job preferences. According to the research results, it is recommended that academic career counseling be provided in accordance with the needs of the labor market, as well as job security by the employer since employers can be satisfied with their employments when guiding applicants to choose their desired jobs.

Introduction A better understanding of the future challenges of social networking is obtained when the media system is examined in more depth and assess the effects of its trends. We believe that one of the ways of building a better society in this global village is through paying more attention to everyone's present sensitive and crucial role in shaping the future and familiarizing them with the most important future developments. Facing today's global challenges such as the development of social media, followed by gradual institutionalization of the virtual public sphere and local and indigenous Iranian issues like changing economic, political, and social conditions requires a look at the past and present-day globalization and a foresight for tomorrow. Therefore, neglecting the futuristic view of communication developments and its effects on a developing country like Iran has slowed down pioneering the building of the future of the society and as a result of short-term instead of long-term planning, a different future may be formed instead of promoting knowledge of the future. Consequently, a legal vacuum (non-implementation of the law) may occur instead of legal synchronicity based on the future. Accordingly, the present study sought to address the question of what social challenges Iran may face based on the future of virtual social networks. Materials & Methods The current study was based on an exploratory research and a combined (quantitative and qualitative) approach in terms of implementation. The method of the present research was generally based on the Popper model. In the data analysis stage, the results were provided by using the structural analysis of interaction effects and using SPSS and Micmac software. Discussion of Results & Conclusions The findings revealed a separation of stable and unstable problems in the society. The dispersion type of Iran's social problems in the face of the future of cyberspace showed the future of Iranian society involved in an unstable and complex system of social issues affected by the future of cyberspace. Also, the study conducted based on the division of issues into strategic and less strategic problems demonstrated that such issues as pervasiveness of free relations between men and women, emergence of new relationships between sexes, disrespect of privacy, emergence of modern youth, changing the levels of crimes from allies and streets to the cyberspace, and emergence of digital identity were the most important strategic issues in the face of the future of cyberspace, thus making social and cultural policies a priority. On the other hand, analysis of the results overlapped some negative functions of cyberspace evolution provided by Trend One Research Center and displayed the importance of paying attention to this issue in the face of the possible future. In this case, the mentioned research center listed the negative consequences of the future evolution of cyberspace as an extension of the society. The first avatar marriage with a human being, and the first divorce due to having virtual affairs with the characters in computer games were among the possible consequences provided by the Trend One research center. Addiction to online games as a national issue (Arjmandi and Salavatian, 2015: 5), in which the most important consequence affecting national and local identities and moving diverse identities towards a single global identity occurred in the cyberspace was another issue raised by this research center. One of the leading challenges based on the future research of social issues resulting from the future developments of virtual social networks was the "emergence of cosmopolitan identity" caused by the failure of identity boundaries. Cyberspace is an open and free space beyond any cultural, social, and even family constraints. Users and audiences can create an identity for themselves in accordance with their ideas and fantasies, regardless of the real world constraints. Uploading photos, videos, and any personal contents in the cyberspace is a kind of liberation from the real-world algebra, while making an identity. Therefore, these networks provide a platform to break the boundaries of identity and make integration of societies into one identity. However, since the presence and use of Iranian society in the future developments of virtual social networks was slower than those of the West, our society was the destination of this change. Therefore, before we Iranians entered the network, the sphere and field of action fell in the protected area of ​​the West. Hence, the necessary social preparation had to be provided to deal with this challenge. This was confirmed by a statement by David Ratkaff, a former Deputy Secretary of Commerce of the Clinton Administration, who examined the elites that were building this global power in his book entitled The Superclass. In one part of his book, he evaluated the issue of globalization in the following way (Ratkaf, 2016: 34-35): "For many, globalization has meant and continues to mean Westernization, and even worse, it has the concept of Americanization at its core, which is somehow linked to Zionism and the ancient Jewish threat. It is the collapse of cultural boundaries and barriers, and on the one hand, for some, it is reminiscent of the spread of Islam. For others, such as Dobbs and Buchanan, the concept of Latinization of the United States and decline of "Anglo-Saxon" identity has prevailed. In this view, national identities have besieged. Still, for a number of others in the world, the policies of the World Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization to protect the interests of the rich and evoke the second wave of imperialism have been directed towards a new corporate-led colonialism, in which the Internet has transformed the materialist capitalism. "