Iranian Journal of Sociology
Year:2011 | Volume:12 | Issue:3|Papers Count:7

When did constitutional revolution begin in Iran? Can we recognize a beginning point in the history for this revolution? Which one of the active social forces in social context of Iran sent the flying spark of this revolution? These are questions under discussion in this article. For dealing with these questions, some standpoints in historical research such as narrative position, continuity, discontinuity, and multiplicity of perspectives are reviewed and views of Henri Bergson, Ferdinand Braudel, and Georges Gurvitch are criticized. Afterwards, on the basis of Foucault's genealogy, instead of considering a "beginning", this historical research relies on the "beginnings" of constitutional revolution. Finally, through a critical discourse analysis of the editorial of the solitary published number of Vatan (La Patrie) newspaper, we make it clear that one of the beginning of the constitutional revolution happened at the same time that organic intellectuals, as a new social forces at the juncture of threshold of constitutional revolution, came into the social stage of Iran. But, if other social forces, instead of intellectuals, are considered as the main actor in narration of constitutional revolution, the beginning of this revolution would be transferred to the other point of history.

The compound term "citizenship rights" is a conception that has recently gained currency in the social and political discourse. This conception represents common rights and basic freedoms of societies and contains essential needs of a nation. The citizenship rights not only include rights but it is also balanced by a set of commitments. Citizens undertake their duties by awareness of rights. Therefore, it is obligatory to be cognizant about awareness of rights among all citizens especially young adults and students.This article describes the measure of awareness of rights among Allameh Tabatabaei University and the Islamic Azad University students. It focuses on differences and analyzes effective factors as concerns the measure of awareness among these students. In this study upon reviewing the history of citizenship concept and defining the theoretical framework, the survey method is used along with the technique of questionnaire, during which 300 students were selected through cluster sampling.The results demonstrated that the measure of awareness of rights in some domains such as gender rights, civil rights, cultural rights and social rights are higher among Allameh Tabatabaei University students compared with the Islamic Azad University students. The highest measure of awareness of rights is related to gender rights and the lowest measure of awareness of rights is related to civil rights.

Street harassment is a form of forbidden discrimination against women which turns public places into an unsafe and undesirable environment for their social activities. Women's silence while facing these kinds of harassments is considered as a reason for the prevalence of such acts in the society. So studying the women's experiences of street harassment and their responses to harassment seems to be essential.The present study on the female students of Shiraz University has been conducted using exploratory "qualitative-quantitative" design. The research problem was explored through depth interviews, in order to familiarize the researchers with the participants' mental meaning, experiences and point of views, in the qualitative part of this study. Afterward, the results of the qualitative part (N=369) were used to develop the theoretical framework, and the quantitative instrument, the questionnaire.According to the qualitative interviews results, a classification of different kinds of street harassment in public places was made, including 4 main categories: visual, verbal, following and touching harassments. The participants of the qualitative part had experienced verbal and visual harassments more frequently than the other kinds, and this finding was very similar to the quantitative results. According to the respondents of the quantitative part, the visual harassment is the most frequent, followed by verbal, touching and following harassments. Additionally, in case of the respondents' reactions to street harassment, the quantitative results showed that most of the respondents (about %70) respond to the harassment passively. It means most of them preferred to stay silent while confronting a kind of harassment, and this finding agrees with qualitative results, too.

Religious behaviors in the form of rituals and ceremonies, as the most obvious manifestation of religion in society, have great importance for sociologists. For explaining religious behaviors, theories of deprivation, religious socialization, and doctrinal beliefs are three major and dominant theoretical approaches in sociological researches. In the present research article an attempt has been made, first, to combine the basic ideas of these three theories in a theoretical model for added richness of explanation of the topic namely, religious behaviors, and in the second step, some competing predictions of these theories are made to empirically evaluate and to clearly determine which of them are preferable. Finally, the developed theoretical model was tested by data obtained from the National Iranian population (n=4937) to find out the level of empirical fitness. Overall, the results of this study indicate that theoretical model derived from aforesaid theories, generally and in sum, could explain about three-quarters (73 precent) of variance of Religious behaviors. However, the theory of deprivation failed to obtain empirical support. Also, the findings of the present research once again proved the importance of religious socialization and indicated that religious behaviors are more direct function of their religious socialization experiences.

The sense of political efficacy has two dimensions. The first is internal efficacy which indicates personal competencies for influencing political processes and the second is external efficacy which denotes personal perception of government accountability.Composing political internal and external efficacy introduces four political positions including political assured action, apathy, protest and despondency. The dynamic processes of these four are dependent upon change in levels of political trust, electoral participation, political commitment, ideological preference and social economic status.Results of secondary analysis in a 200 people sample of teachers in Neishabour City showed that: First, teachers' sense of political efficacy in its internal dimension is lower than middle point (48.9 in a 0-100 scale) and in its external dimension is higher than middle point (56.6). Second, political assured action (52.8) and apathy are the most frequent types of teachers' political efficacy. Third, among other variables, political trust and electoral participation are most powerful determinants of shifting political efficacy states (from apathy to assures political action), that is %58 to %78 of shifts in efficacy states are linked to change in levels of political trust and electoral participation. Fourth, having levels of political trust and electoral participation, it is possible to predict accurately %92.3 of apathy cases and %84.2 of assured actions.

The present study aims at analyzing social process and consequences of labeling concerning patients with HIV/AIDS in Mashhad in the year of 2009. The qualitative method and case study technique (life history) were used. The subjects were all HIV-infected patients of a behavioral health center in Mashhad. There were all selected based on the types of risk analysis, that is the mode of exposure to the disease. The data were gathered using deep and semi-focused interviews. The results ultimately proved the stigma of violation of patients' human rights and non-compliance to treatment procedure. In line with other studies, inside and outside Iran, findings of this research show that stigma HIV/AIDS has both personal and public dimensions. In addition to the patient, others who are in contact with the patient may react to the disease. These reactions help the patient form some personal interpretations that can pose him/her challenges regarding one's self-concept and in establishing relationships with others. The researchers conclude that stigmas are rooted in the beliefs, perceptions and stereotypes; therefore they can affect individuals' as well as community's health.