JOURNAL OF THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Year:2008 | Volume:1 | Issue:1 (SOCIAL RESEARCH)|Papers Count:7

It is a fact that Ibn Khaldun could not become the founder of sociology and although this is a dead issue now, but the query still remains as to ‘why he didn’t?’ hence; the review of this subject possesses subjectivity and desirability, as well. Meanwhile, before proceeding to such an issue, it must be confirmed that Ibn Khaldun was a sociologist and has had recognized himself as founder of sociology. As a matter of fact, the present article through its brief deliberation as well as taking into accounts of “researchers of Ibn Khaldun”, “his own account about himself”, and “Muqaddimah” tries to obtain the actuality behind this issue. Thereafter, to review the actual question, the paper focuses the frameworks of sociology of knowledge and sociology of scientific that why did Ibn Khaldun not achieve such a position despite of possessing theoretical capabilities. The issue has been responded through comparative study of two actual and virtual founders: Although with respect to individual abilities, Ibn Khaldun possessed priority of excellence over Auguste Comte but with respect to the structural condition which is considered necessary for the emergence of sociological knowledge it was Comte who raised the banner of independence and practically became the founder of sociology.

Comprative methods are useful, powerful research instruments for production, test and development of Macro-theories in sociology. Nevertheless, there are some problems and issues in comparative studies – like other research methods in social sceinces–that can create some significant limitations in the field of validity of the results of such studies, if due attention is not paid to them. In fact, there are certain methodological problems and traps in the way of such studies that the researchers should be aware of and pay attention to them at the time of research and interpretaiton of the results of their research. This article is an attemp to elaborate on three basic problems in macro-comparative researches which are:Ecological & Individualistic Fallacy, Selection Bias, and Degrees of Freedom problem.

This paper starts with some definitions of narratives and narratological analyses and the reasons behind their importance and popularity as both a methodology and as a technique for the study, comparison and analysis. Next I will elaborate on some linguistic and structural features of narrative analysis and the way they can be used in textual (story) and oral (specially autobiographical interviews) data. The paper ends with a critical evaluation of narratives strengths and weaknesses.

The purpose of this article is to do a sociological study of mosque focusing on mosque discourses in contemporary Iran. Our major question is how we can demonstrate mosque in the context of modern Iranian society? To examine this question I analyze mosques discourse to contextualize the institution of mosque in its historical, social, cultural and political grounds. So, we do not examine the mosque from religious knowledge and perspectives. By mosque discourses, I mean all different theories, conceptions and knowledge on mosque. These mosque discourses are produced according to given historical time and conditions, and are presented in the works and ideas of scholars, clerics, writers, media and press. In this study, I have classified all mosque discourses into four categories including traditional, secular, revolutionary ideological and critical ideological discourses. These are the dominant mosque discourses in contemporary Iran. Based on this study, I have examined and identified some of problems and challenges of the institution of mosque in today Iran. The last section of this article presents a methodological approach to study mosque.

The Present Paper seeks to compare the religiousity among university students and other young people. The rationale is the attention paid by social research on the relationship between modernity and secularism. Although Peter Berger has changed his idea regarding the secularism being the final result of modernity, but it is still claimed that people with higher level of education are less inclined toward religion than others. In other words, university students show lower level of religiousity. The present paper by employing Berger's conceptual framework and taking into account the varions dimensions of religiousity seeks to examine religiousity among these two groups of people. The results confirmed the revised idea of Berger. In other words, no significant difference were found. Yet no single pattern in religiousity is followed by all people. For this reason, it is better to describe the situation as multi-dimensional religiousity.

The purpose of this research is to study of intensity of women's political participation in relation to the social capital. The social capital is positions and relations in groupings and social networks. In this study, we have used Pierre Bourdieu's Cultural Conflict Theory, as our theoretical framework, to explain different dimensions of the social capital. Our research method in data collection and data analysis is social survey. This survey has been done among 398 women over 18 years old living in Shiraz that have been divided in to two groups of employer and house- worker, and have used questionnaire for data collection which its validity is measured by face validity and its reliability by Cronbach's Alpha.By dividing the social capital into four dimensions, with regarding two aspects of political participation (attitude to participation & level of participation) it was observed that there is a meaningful relation between dimensions of social capital and political participation of respondents. Given the research findings, it is necessary to prepare a good context for women in order to develop social networks and to encourage communicational alliances depending on interest and friendship, especially in family.