Iranian Journal of Sociology
Year:2003 | Volume:4 | Issue:4|Papers Count:8

Increased interethnic relationships (symmetric relations) in interactive areas of earning a living, power, emotional and intellectual domains, belonging, convergence and faithfulness, encourage extra-ethnic collective identities (regional and national identities). The present study tests this hypothesis on the basis of empirical data. the research findings demonstrate that as such relationships and inter-group (interethnic) collaborations, which result from integration of economic, political, social and cultural relations, increase, ethnic groups develop greater tendency towards larger collective units, including national and regional collective identities, whereas a decrease in such relations encourages particalaristic-collective units and weakens universalistic-collective ones.

From the perspective of organizational -sociology, sociology of development and political sociology, voluntary associations are extremely important. Based on the specific social conditions of developing societies, the researchers distinguished three transition models. The general conditions of the Iranian society conform to the second model. So, considering the transition of the society, voluntary associations were grouped into five types: primary associations, religious associations, consensus-basealassociation, promotional association, and profit associations. Ceremonial through a qualitative research method, 180 voluntary support associations were selected and studied. In addition to the theoretical criteria, new indices were discovered throughout the research for categorization of associations in Iran, which reflect, in addition to the transitional conditions, the impacts of the economic and political sector on public sector and civil institutions.

Within the recent decades, three major themes of theoretical discussions in sociology have been introduced and dealt with human body as a topic of social research and theory. The three themes are as follows: a) the increasing significance of the concept of self in modern social theories, b) the change in the social structure of identity and its shift from production to consumption areas, together with development of ret1ective identities in the context of a culture" of consumption, c) visualization of symbols of status and identity in metropolitan culture, and the possibility of manipulating and controlling visual configuration, in order to give shape to the from of identity, which basically means controlling and taking care of body as the vehicle of self and as the most significant medium of identity. This article presents an empirical study of the hypothesis formulated about detachment of forms of human identity from structural situations and their connection with cultural features of a sample of 825 residents of Tehran, aged 18 years old and over. The research findings demonstrate that there is a significant relation between various level of body management and the variables which have obvious cultural significations, such as sex, age, education, cultural capital, religiosity. and traditional attitude towards family. However no significant relation was noticed between body management and structural variables such as socio-economic position.

How are social and occupational opportunities provided? Do all people of a society have equal opportunities to access high and low positions? There are two dominant approaches to the study of social inequities and social mobility; one is called the distribution aspect of inequity, and the other is called the relation aspect of inequity. The former studies social mobility of occupation of the present research consists of all the household heads (employed, and unemployed but seeking jobs) residing in Hamadan in 2002. The research method is survey. The data have been collected through questionnaires and interview with the selected samples. The results demonstrate that occupational mobility is common, whereas class mobility seems to be limited, and that classes move towards structuralization.

The present article describes and explains the national identity of the baluch university student in Iran. The major hypothesis indicates that there is a relation between the identity of the Baluch university students, i.e. feeling of belonging, responsibility and loyalty to the land, nation and government of Iran, and their personal characteristics, their position, their social interactions with social groups, and the conditions resulting from these interactions, such as students" satisfaction with life. To find the answer to the main research question, and to test the major hypotheses, an appropriate sample was drawn from the Baluch students studying in the universities of Zahedan; the survey method was used and the data were collected and analyzed using a questionnaire which had already been checked for reliability and validity. The results show that Baluch university students have a high, positive tendency towards some of the components of national identity, particularly the land of Iran and the Iranian nation, but are indifferent to its political components, i.e. the government. In the final analysis of this issue, the variable concerning the degree of students" satisfaction with their education, work and life in Iran was found to be particularly outstanding, so much that it proved to have the greatest share in explaining and predicting students" tendency towards national identity. Confirming the relation between the collective identity of the youth and some of the variables discussed in micro-sociology, the theoretical findings of the research identified the need for focusing on macrovariables , and integrating the two sets of variables into a comprehensive, integrated conceptual framework. With regard to the theoretical findings, some procedures are suggested at the end of the article for modifying the existing assumptions and promoting people"s life, particularly the life of the youth, the application of which can improve the national or the collective, universal, societal identity in Iran.

Under the present global conditions, national states exist as the major recognized models of political organization at the macro-level, which necessarily channel all legal, political, economic and cultural relations among various peoples and cultures. Yet, defining culture at the national level, or presenting national belonging and identity as the sole identity, or even the most important identity which can sweep away all other identities does not indeed conform to reality. National identity is challeuged on the one hand, by the local and ethnic belongings and on the other, by the global. The purpose of this study is to present a dynamic analysis of the confrontation of these levels of identity, in order to provide a rather clear picture of the existing situation, and thus achieve basic policies for solving the problems which result from the discord and incongruence among the levels. To reach this goal, the article focuses on the numerous indices which are basically placed within the framework of the concept of life style, such as nutrition, family, aesthetic interests, political belonging, and the like. The research population consists of the students in the final year of high school and the native university students in Khorramabad and Borujerd, two cities of Lorestan province. The population is representative, and the results are mostly generalizable both in Iran and for some aspects in developing world. The population was studied in terms of the two educational and sexual levels, in two groups: cultural assumptions and cultural behaviors.

The present research reviews and analyses job conscientiousness, and the factors which affect it, among the staff of the petrochemical industries, known as modern organizations of the country, both in terms of their structure and their manpower. The positive significant correlation between level of job conscientiousness and the method of shared management, job fitness, intra-organizational feeling of satisfaction, the positive feeling of organizational justice, and the staffs level of expertise, together with the negative significant correlation between level of job conscientiousness, particularly its behavioral dimensions, and the age and experience of the staff, are among the outstanding results of this study. Through the multivariate analysis, administration of appropriate regression models, and controlling the variance of factors and variables, a significant positive relation was noticed at the level of 0.999, between extension of organizational justice, correspondence of specialization to job requirements, extension of intra-organizational satisfaction, institutionalization of shared management techniques and also distribution of positions and jobs on the basis of the abilities and requests of the staff. These five factors explained more than 50 percent of the variance of the degree of job conscientiousness among the staff.

Totalitarian political systems in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe destroyed and repressed the civil society that used to exist in them. The auhoriatarian and totalitarian ethos was formed under a powerful influence of ideologies of the communist parties and politocarcy in these countries so that the political ethos of politicians dominated the political ethos of the citizen. The breakdown of the real socialism and its unsuccessful attempts to complete accelerated liberal modernization of these societies caused turbulence of social values in addition to the general moral chaos. The moral crisis has deepened; anomie increased as well as the society"s inclination to commit crime. This makes difficult the creation of the cultural matrix of the civil society and its moral value. The liberation and development of the political ethos of the civil society as an element of the democratic political culture require structural and mental changes in these societies. They imply abandoning the value matrices of the traditional and political societies based upon collectivism, trbalism, authoritarianism, egalitarianism, ethnocentrism, etatisme and mythologization ofthe past. They require the use of the citizen"s active potential as well as that of their associations, their readiness for political commitment, self-initiative, respect of the general interest and a courageous defense of freedom and social justice.