SOCIAL STUDIES AND RESEARCH IN IRAN
Year:2018 | Volume:7 | Issue:3 |Papers Count:8

For a long time, academic life in Iran has been a controversial issue, and the educational and research performance of academics has been subject to significant and controversial changes. Some lawsuits have shown the loss of academic values, academic norms, academic responsibilities, and other changes. For Iranian society, these issues are of vital importance in a world where life has become more and more knowledgeable and its study is necessary. This paper studies the evolution of scientific life between three generations of university professors by qualitative method and using the theory based on “ GT” . Scholars were selected in the framework of a targeted sample among the professors of all three comprehensive universities in Tehran (Tehran, Tarbiat Modares and Shahid Beheshti). Required data were obtained through deep and semi-structured exploratory interviews with theoretical saturation by 52 samples, and were analyzed using Atlas-based software. Results showed that the professors had different strategies in their interaction with the causal, environmental and background conditions; First-generation masters were accustomed to educational and elitist universities, and education with them was more important than research, and had a good relationship with their students. Full-time residence on campus is a habit for them by turning the university toward research. Second-generation masters are focusing on a combination of education and research, and some of them have led to applied large projects. Third generation professors have been naturally materialized. Their craftiness has led to a reduction in campus accommodation, and the professor seeks to establish knowledge-based companies and socialize student business students in order to earn knowledge of wealth production. The result of these strategies is the decline of norms to the importance of the affair and the interest of the scientific profession. Despite the differences between the three generations, they share common concerns, including: political dominance over academic affairs, quantity domination and quality decline, weakness of social interactions, formal paper writing, unplanned and uneven extension of higher education, weak academic international cooperation, and weakness of social capital.

This paper is aimed to future environmental study of Iran by exploring and validating the scenario in Isfahan by hybridization or hybridization. The analysis was carried out at two qualitative and quantitative levels. In the qualitative section, which is the grounded technique of the theory, the basis of the discovery of scenarios, using the experiences of environmental experts. The results of data analysis were presented based on the triple coding steps and in the open coding process, more than 245 propositions significant and 134 corresponding concepts were extracted, and in the next step, 72 subcategories of these corresponding concepts were extracted. In the subcategory, there are two types of categorization which relates to the scenarios of the Iranian-Islamic model of progress and the Western model of development, which includes 27 subcategories, and other hands on the future scenarios of environmental culture, which includes 45 subcategories. Finally, due to the conceptual relationship between the categories together in the pivotal coding stage, three categories of issues for future scenarios of environmental culture and eight core categories for development and development scenarios were developed in the form of a model. Then, the model of structural equation modeling algorithm was tested. Findings of the qualitative section of the research showed that, in terms of contributing to the research, optimistic, probable and pessimistic scenarios of the future of environmental culture based on the development of two patterns of Iranian Islamic model scenarios were the progress and western pattern of development. In the quantitative section, statistical results show that the effect of each of the scenarios of the Islamic Iranian model of development and scenarios of the western pattern of development has been significant on the future scenarios of environmental culture with coefficients 0. 46 and 0. 81.

Personal space surveillance is dynamic, and flexibility level of personal space varies with the change in position. Measuring the impact of situational factors on the personal space requires careful study in this regard which has not been taken into account in the internal studies accordingly. This study seeks to identify the location dependent component, and identifies the main variables affecting the boundaries of personal space. This paper on the basis of purpose is an applied theoretical and by method is correlational by survey and statistical analyses. Traditional Dezful bazaar have been selected as the case study. In this paper, each effective variants on personal space border in the traditional Dezful Bazaar are investigated through the factor analysis and each variant are located in a factor which has a significant unity together. Results while preparing a practical model shows main factors affecting personal space in the traditional Dezful bazaar which are physical-structural with 0. 41%, perceptual-semantic with 0. 35%, and activity-behavioral with 0. 24% of the total score. Using this model, prioritization of interventions can be made to improve place design with higher Desirability and better Congestion control. In such places, users can have adequate supervision over the boundaries of their own personal space.

The religious minorities problems have become the common controversial issues of western societies by factors such as immigration, pluralism, and interconnectivity from the 1970s. One of these issues of religious minorities has been their social life. Meanwhile, the question arises as to how the social life of minorities is in the Iranian society, which has an Islamic state. This paper is to study the Zoroastrian social life status in Tehran using observation, participation, in-depth interviews and documentary studies methods. Zoroastrian social life were examined among the four categories of “ causes of Zoroastrian population decline” , “ differentiation between oneself and another” , “ marginalization” and “ actions for social recognition” . Results show that Zoroastrians try to increase the sense of belonging and solidarity among themselves through the non-acceptance of non-Zoroastrians in their communities, the avoidance of marriage with non-Zoroastrians, the efforts to live in their particular regions and the education of their kids in special Zoroastrian schools. Zoroastrians also try to live in a totally peaceful way among the Iranian Muslim community to maintain their religion and to be recognized in society, and not to lose their legal rights. Therefore, it seems that they have a special status in their social life environment, and are not subject to any of the two patterns of assimilation and multiculturalism.

Immigration is a process which does not end with the arrival of immigrants to the target. Focusing on immigrant narratives and extracting immigration and survival strategies are essential to completing immigration research. This paper focusing on the migration process of one of the Azerbaijani families resident in Tehran from an anthropological point of view and with a narrative analysis method to survival and promotion of life among some of the low-income immigrants in the city. Results show that immigration dynamism has been denied in its definition. This concept goes immigration beyond the staged migration (from village to small town, and from there to larger cities), returning migration (returning migrant to the village due to the sameness of urban and rural lives), and spatial or periodic migration (seasonal residence in city and village). Moreover, this study shows that attracting low-income urban migrants in the city takes about two to three decades. They quietly equip themselves with survival and prompting strategies. One of these strategies revolves around housing and a variety of low-income neighborhoods.

High level documents assessment suggests lack of clear policies on the issues of ethnic groups in the country’ s higher education system. Ignoring the existence of different identities and ethnic diversity in academic environments, as well as the failure to identify and introduce the cultures of different ethnic groups, have consequences and challenges in higher education. In this regard, this paper is to explore the challenges of higher education system in the issue of ethnicity and ethnic policy making strategies by using Delphi qualitative study. So, semi-structured interviews were made with 15 faculty members and cultural experts from universities of different ethnic backgrounds and different academic disciplines and grades, who had studied ethnicity. The analysis of qualitative data by “ thematic analysis” shows that the challenges of higher education in discussing ethnicity are in three fields: political, educational, and cultural. The most important challenges encountered in the political arena are: paradoxical showing the strengthening of ethnic identity against national identity, the probability of ethnocentrism in universities, style-centered manner of chiefs and managers on ethnicity, the politicization of ethnicity in universities and non-academic exposure to ethnicity at the university. In the field of ethnicity and education, universities faced challenges such as non-academic encounter with the subject of ethnicity at the university, educational justice, mother language education, the establishment of the field of ethnic literature and native-selection of students and professors. Challenges in the field of ethnicity and culture in higher education are: weakness in the management of cultural activities of ethnicities, issues of student publications, artistic and cultural festivals, literary associations, and the use of ethnic symbols.

The word “ hermeneutics” implies the idea that in humanities and social sciences, there is only one hermeneutic methodological approach, while there are various methodological hermeneutics approaches. In order to study the social life, hermeneutics uses two models i. e. hermeneutics of recovery andhermeneutics of suspicion. Traditional or recovery hermeneutics approach as a qualitative research method in social sciences, tries to acquire a first-hand knowledge from social actors, but contemporary or suspicion hermeneutics seeks to understand and penetrate to the flow of everyday self-understanding and reveal the reality and the right and bottom true meaning of social action. This paper, using documentary method, tries to highlight and introduce the suspicion hermeneutics as one of appropriate methods for social studies. Results indicate that suspicion hermeneutics claims that the understanding which traditional or recovery hermeneutics emphasizes on, is itself fundamentally flawed, and the understanding that comes with this type of hermeneutics is only a mask of the underlying reality. While from the point of view of suspicion hermeneutics, the suitable goal for the social sciences is influencing the flow of everyday self-awareness and revealing the truth and meaning of social action, which has a close relationship with social sciences scholars’ emphasis on the fluidity of everyday life.

Urban historical neighborhoods are one of the most important capitals left over from the past centuries in Iran, which, today, have been eroded and degraded for various reasons. One of the most important neighborhoods in the capital of Iran (Tehran) is the Oudlajan neighborhood. Given the Oudlajan as a complex historical system, it is necessary to answer two key questions regarding it in order to preserve and restore this neighborhood. First, what factors are in the historical context together to create the current instable situation in this neighborhood? And what other parts of the neighborhood are in the current situation, and what role does each of these components play in increasing its stability or instability? This paper, by using various methods such as documentary study, interview and field observation, tries to answer the above questions in relation to the Oudlajan neighborhood. According to the results, some of the most important factors affecting the current situation in the neighborhood in different historical periods are: the weakening of the productive and economic system of the country due to the inability to compete with the new systems, reducing the dependence of the capital to other cities and villages in the country and strengthening the mechanism of attracting population in Tehran over the past 150 years, changing the pattern of stratification in urban neighborhoods and focusing on poverty and wealth in some neighborhoods, breaking the organic relationship of Tehran’ s bazaar with Oudlajan neighborhood and exploiting the Oullajan by the market and the inefficiency of urban management systems as controlling systems and regulator of relationships in city. The most important parts of the neighborhood, in terms of its impact on stability or instability, can be divided into four broad categories, which are mentioned in the text of the paper, and it seems that the result of their forces is now to increase the instability in the neighborhood. It should be noted that if this trend continues, the survival of the Oudlajan as a historical neighborhood will face with serious challenges, and Iran will lose another valuable historical capital forever.