Ferdowsi University of Mashhad Journal of social sciences
Year:2010 | Volume:6 | Issue:2|Papers Count:9

Social interaction in academic society is a process in which faculty members transfer what they have in mind to each other. This can lead to the production of quality ideas. Therefore, the basic purpose of this article is show that a high level of social interaction between professors has a positive effect on the quality of the ideas produced in academia. The method of research in this study was survey. The data was collected through a questionnaire from 142 members of the faculty of Isfahan University.Statistical methods, including multivariate regression and path analysis were performed by using SPSS 17.0 and LISREL.In general, the results obtained through path analysis show that between dimensions of social interaction, the effect of Relative dimension on quality ideas is more than the other variables (structural and cognitive dimensions).The independent variables are able to explain 25 percent of the variance observed in dependent variables.

Social apathy refers to avoidance from participation in social problems, discouragement and disinterest, civic disinvolvement and being inattentive to social, political, cultural subjects and social alienation happens when the individuals in relation to self, others and society at diverse forms feel powerless, abnormal, meaningless, socially isolated or hate the culture or themselves. The main purpose of this research is to study the relationship between social alienation and social apathy among undergraduate students of University of Tabriz.The data was collected using questionnaires which were distributed among 410 participants in 8 faculties of university according to classified sampling method and statistical sample. Theoretical background of the study was formed from a combination of micro and macro views and the main focus was put on middle-term theories such those proposed by Pounds, Ross, and Seeman. The interpretation of the results obtained from LISREL and the results of hypothesis testing showed that there are significant relations among social alienation and social apathy.

The main purpose of this article is to present a clear picture of social bordering of urban space in Mashhad and to identify the socio-spatial hierarchy in this city. 17510 resident householders were selected through stratified sampling and they were interviewed. The hierarchical clustering analysis was used to analyze the data, based on three social basic characteristics including occupational prestige, education and income. The results indicated that firstly, among the different compositions of the districts clustering the five clustering is the fitted composition. Namely in this clustering the five clusters have the most inter-group social homogeneity and the most between-group social heterogeneity.Secondly, comparing the means of the variables among the five clusters of districts indicated that they have a different availability level with respect to occupational, educational and income advantages and they have the socio-spatial hierarchical order. Moreover, the results of discriminant analysis of five clusters showed the discriminating power of education, income and occupational prestige as: 79.9, 56.9, 52.0 in percentage respectively.

One of the most important changes in the judicial system of Iran was the establishment of dispute settlement councils in 1381. Before this date, judgment and solving the disputes was being carried out only in official juridical centers. After establishing the councils, rural and urban communities welcomed those institutes that were in charge of judging some part of citizen’s problems. In this paper, we have tried to evaluate the function of those institutes and analyze the role of dispute settlement councils in obtaining juridical security for rural citizens. The present paper is a descriptive-analytic survey. The data was collected through a questionnaire.The sample consists of 15 villages of Marand that benefit from consultation settlement of dispute.200 people were selected by using Cochran and Proportional allocation models.55 indices were evaluated as positive and negative components in juridical security of rural citizens. Finally, a paired sample t test was used for analysis. The results show that there is a meaningful difference between the periods before and after establishment of the dispute settlement councils in most of the indices. Therefore, despite some of the shortcomings, dispute settlement council is one of the effective institutes for expending the culture of peace in the society and maintaining the juridical security of the rural society.

This paper tries to introduce and measure the social capital evaluation indices at the community level while focusing on the significance of the notion of social capital itself. Neighborhood ties indices, trust at the community level, participation in the community affairs, informal social control and sense of belonging to the community are the most important indices in this study. The major goal of the present research is to identify the effective factors in the development of social capital at the community level. The homogeneity rate (revenue, education and then the family), residential stability, participation in religious ceremonies in the community, and the features of the community context were chosen as the most significant factors in the development of social capital. The method of research was survey. The data was gathered through a questionnaire using multi-level sampling. The sample includes the citizens of district 9 in Mashhad from whom 381 individuals were chosen across eight neighborhoods. The findings show that the average social capital of individuals at the community level is 2.99 in a five-part range. Furthermore it was found that participation in religious ceremonies in the community is the most effective factor in the development of social capital. The significant relationship between the social capital and the residential stability and the features of the individuals’ living context was verified. It was also found that there is a positive relationship between social capital and the individuals’ homogeneity in the community but it is not statistically significant.

Study of collective actions is related to some of the most important issues in contemporary sociology such as cooperation, collective decision making, emergence of social norms etc. this paper in four steps presents a framework for studying collective actions. These steps are related to characteristics of collective actions (cooperation and common good), factors effecting the emergence of collective actions (individual and meta-individual factors), factors effecting the maintenance of collective actions (central and dispread control), and approaches of actors in collective actions (imitation and computation) respectively. These characteristics are extracted from the available literature on collective actions and organized by the researchers. This framework could be used to study advantages and disadvantages of any collective action. Components of this framework are interrelated to each other and could produce a wide variety of different collective actions. Study of case of economic partnerships among householders in a neighborhood in Samen district in Mashhad is done to show the application of this framework.

This paper investigates the factors affecting the organizational commitment of the Khorasan Razavi’s Gas Company’s staff in the central office of Mashhad. The Method of research was survey and the data was collected using a standard questionnaire.The population was consisted of 200 personnel and the sample included 66 individuals from the company’s staff which were selected though stratified sampling. The results of the study show that the level of organizational commitment is more than average. The level of organizational commitment has no meaningful relationship with variables of organizational justice, work independence, role pressure, job promotion and opportunity, and ambiguity of role. The results of multiple regressions and path analysis show that organizational justice is the most important and the most effective factor affecting the level of organizational commitment whereas the other variables have an indirect effect on organizational commitment.