INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN THE HUMANITIES (IRANIAN JOURNAL OF CULTURAL RESEARCH)
Year:2019 | Volume:11 | Issue:1 (41)|Papers Count:7

Interdisciplinary research has been developing dramatically in the recent two decades. Reviewing the related literature shows that such research is very important in terms of its methodology and typology. This study aims to compare, describe, and determine different categories of interdisciplinary research considering their historical trends through a documentary research approach in a way other than the ones which have been done so far. This research applies a genealogical perspective to find roots of different categorizations of interdisciplinary research despite all the existing consistency and inconsistency. It also seeks to propose a new dialogue in this regard. The study indicates an overlap between different categories of research. In addition, interdisciplinary research along with changes in the role of universities has emphasized on a structural-practical categorization rather than a structural one in the late 20th century till recent decades. In the same way, the nature of knowledge has changed from an academic one to a post-academic one.

To learn participatory and pragmatic urban planning, students have to engage with the society in real and ultra-disciplinary settings. In some universities, such an opportunity is provided through provision of voluntary civil services. But this kind of services has not been included in the official programs of the urban planning in Iran while the highly centralized academic administration makes any formal alteration very difficult. The aim of this article is to examine the possibility of introducing civil services within the current administration. It was pursued through an action research which tried to establish service at studio level. This kind of service is mostly known as “ service-learning” . A review of the literature showed that service-learning in the field of urban planning suffers from the isolation of universities from the society. This problem manifests itself at two levels: the administrative structure and the professional techniques of participation. Focusing on the professional level, the pragmatic formulation of democratic engagement of universities is reviewed. Using this foundation, an alternative method of participation based on the analogy and metaphor is introduced. This method was adopted, reflected on and reformed within three semesters of action research. The final edition of the method satisfactorily eased the technical problems and justified the voluntary service for students within the current administration. But the collaborating professors rejected the sufficiency of the mere method, without structural modifications. The probable reasons for that rejection are discussed for further studies.

This paper addresses the issue of using ICTs to improve environmental standards of Iran. The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of ICTs on Iranians’ environmental adaptation. The paper contributes to the production of knowledge in the area of promoting sustainable development based on the necessities of Iran's environment. We used a theoretical synthesis that establishes a logical link between ecological sustainability, community empowerment, and participatory development. Methodologically, we committed to Jensen and Jankowski’ s approach while using a quantitative approach to collect data. Some of the findings indicate that the use of ICTs has a direct and significant effect on the friendly approach of the people towards the environment (r = 0. 4). On the other hand, the mean effect of ICTs on information capital is 22. 84, and the mean effect of ICTs on environmental awareness is 25. 62. Also, the mean impact of ICTs on environmental empowerment (26. 40) and the mean effect of ICTs on environmental participation (53. 61) show a higher range than the expected mean. It means that there is good awareness of the application of ICTs in Iran’ s environment. Moreover, an analysis of the structural equations modeling shows that ICTs with a path coefficient of β = 0. 58 affected information capital. Different results indicate that information capital affects environmental awareness, environmental empowerment, and environmental participation with the path coefficients of β = 0. 65, β = 0. 45 and β = 0. 52 respectively.

This research aimed at analyzing research on "social media and political participation" in two levels of external and internal research, first of all, to examine the strengths and weaknesses of these studies and then compare them. In this meta-analysis, 17 research (9 external and 8 internal) were studied in three theoretical sections (4 criteria), a method (10 criteria) and a cognitive (2) criterion. The meta-analysis shows that the most important strengths of research, the diversity of theoretical approaches, the use of the integrated theoretical framework, the diversity of the statistical society, the variety of sample selection methods, the use of various statistical tests, and, at the same time, with high statistical power, attention The level of micro analysis, diversity in the social media, and attention to the various impacts in the results section And the weaknesses of the researches, the use of some unrelated theoretical approaches and approaches in theoretical foundations, the weak use of the theoretical frameworks defined in the analysis of the findings, the inability to explain the dimensions of political participation in the theoretical discussions, the overcoming of the proof paradigm And the method of scrolling, the inability to use qualitative and combination methods, the lack of consideration of tool validity, the lack of use of statistical tests to determine the normality of the sample size for measuring parametric tests, the disability in indexing From political participation in the questionnaire and achieving contradictory results in the discussion of the type of effect.

Studying the culture of every community, because of identity characteristics and borders distinguishing different communities, is one of the main requirements for understanding that community. Although researchers from different fields have carried out studies on the culture of university as an important community, unlike other studies on universities, numerous shortcomings and gaps can be found in these studies, leaving studies on academic culture at an immature stage. The present article aims to analyze concepts, views and theories related to this field in order to deal with these problems. The analysis carried out here shows that failure in the conceptual and methodological development of studies on ‘ university culture’ , regardless of the complexity of the concepts of culture, organization and university, has three main reasons: failure to distinguish between “ culture of university” and “ academic culture” , failure to recognize that studies on university culture belong to interdisciplinary fields, and failure to methodologically distinguish between the ‘ has approach’ (culture as a variable) and ‘ is approach’ (culture as a root metaphor).

The human capital theory has played an important role in the introduction and effectiveness of higher education in the development process. The purpose of this article is to study the human capital theory from the viewpoint of political thought and extract its policy implications in the realm of higher education; accordingly, the implicative narrative theory has been used as a conceptual framework and implication research as a methodology. The findings of this paper suggest that the human capital theory based upon utilitarianism provides theoretical and normative bases of an economic approach and market model in higher education. With an overemphasis on the economic dimension of education and giving priority to economic goals, the human capital theory has ignored many other non-economic and intrinsically important functions and goals of the higher education system. This allows the conclusion that the application of human capital theory in higher education suffers from the same reductionist view and shortcomings of utilitarianism, and does not have sufficient theoretical efficacy to offer a comprehensive and multi-dimensional image of the higher education system in the development process.

The most important factor affecting university market practice is the employment of graduates in the market and, consequently, the improvement of market orientation. Marketing in the educational industry has a special relationship with the employment of graduates in the field of education. Identifying the factors that have been operating on the market and improving the performance of graduates is one of the most important goals of this research. Considering that the topic of performance in the market of different areas of educational planning, macro education in the country, curriculum development, and other subjects is included in the field of interdisciplinary subjects, Different types of educational management, strategic management, engineering, and curriculum designing involve market performance management. Conforming to the space requirement of the problem, this paper presents a three-step process model. Regarding analyzing the dimensions and components identified using the Fuzzy Delphi technique, the structural interpretation analysis of the relationship with the industry and industrial projects plays an important role in market orientation and the matching of academic training and market requirements, as well as the factor of being due to Including the level of well-being and infrastructure of the faculty and the surrounding area has a high impact on the level of performance in the market according to the results of an example of nine universities and colleges.