Ferdowsi University of Mashhad Journal of social sciences
Year:2009 | Volume:5 | Issue:2|Papers Count:8

Political participation is considered as the conscious involvement of people in the accomplishment of their affairs and improvement of their social life. Political participation can be assumed in different degrees and can manifest itself in such forms like cooperation, collaboration, solidarity, conformity, adaptation and acceptance. Participation is a process that occurs across the time and therefore it is a continuous and evolutionary process. The researcher has used questionnaires. The population of the study has been the inhabitants of khormoj city. As the sample 341 youths were selected randomly. Face validity and reliability test of Cronbach Alpha is used. Hypotheses are tested using Pearson coefficient and path analysis technique. The results of the study show that social and economic status and organizational relation are related with political participation.

The role and importance of people’s appearance management on their identity has attracted the attention of social sciences scholars in recent decades. Therefore this study investigates the relationship between appearance management and personal identity of youths. To study this relationship, Giddens theory is utilized. The study has been conducted via survey method and the population of the study has been 15 to 25 years old youths, the data was gathered through questionnaires and sample size was 380 cases. The results of the research indicate that appearance management is so important among the youths.

The main purpose of this study is to explore the correlation between religion and mental health. Therefore, using some socio-psychological theories, the study seeks to investigate the relationships between religiosity, religious orientation, perceived social support, and optimism with mental health of university students.  The study has been conducted via survey method and data collected by self-administered questionnaire. The universe of the study was 7083 undergraduate students of the University of Mazandaran. Overall, 405 students were chosen through proportional stratified random sampling method as subjects of the study. The descriptive results of the study showe that on the basis of GHQ-28, 55/7 percent of the students recognized as having proper mental health, while 44/3 percent of them suspected to mental disorders. In addition, almost 60 percent of the students reported high degree of religiosity and religious orientation of majority of them was external. Moreover, two-thirds of the students enjoyed middle optimism and more than half of them, perceived high degree of social support. Furthermore, the results of the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) show that mean numbers of mental health was significantly different by degree of religiosity, internal religious orientation, degree of optimism, and degree of social support. Applying multivariate regression analysis, however, it has been appeared that the degree of students’ mental health was under direct influence of such variables as perceived social support, degree of optimism, and internal religious orientation; while external religious orientation and degree of religiosity had indirect effects on the degree of students’ mental health, through increasing social support and optimism. The implication of the study is that internal religious orientation is the most effective factor to improve the mental health of students, as compared to degree of religiosity and external religious orientation.

Purity involves commitment and awareness of the principles of a religion so that these principles can affect a person’s individual and social life. Since religion deals with fulfilling social needs and those public profits within which the group’s desires lie, today it is expected that a religion can attract and guarantee commitment in its followers. Meanwhile, new cities, especially Baharestan, have witnessed different changes and population mobility and accordingly this city has encountered many challenges, especially commitment to religious values and protecting them. The aim of the present paper is the sociological explication of purity status among the inhabitants of the new city of Baharestan, Isfahan. The study has been conducted via survey method (a closed questionnaire using the Leckert Scale) as well as library research (documental method). The sample was stratified from among the 384 cases of the inhabitants of Baharestan based on age, sex, and the place of residence. The writers have used SPSS in order to analyze the data. The results revealed that the influence of having a religious authority, the amount of attention to local mass media had positive, meaningful relationships with piety. However, socio-economic status, the amount of attention to foreign mass media, and becoming traditional had indirect, meaningful relationships with piety. In addition, the data related to the relationship between piety and social capital confirms these findings.

Globalization and social capital are two main concepts in modern sociology. The study of effects of women's social capital on their social participation is one of the critical areas in women's studies. In order to study women's social capital in globalization process, the writers selected 2200 women in the cities of Tehran, Shiraz and Estahban in a random sense. The results show that cultural capital, awareness about the laws, economic capital, life-style and sex-role attitudes on the whole could explain about 28 percent of women's social capital.

This article studies the staff satisfaction from the performance of public relation section and its factor affecting in Gas Company of the city of Mashhad in Khorasan Razavi province. The study has been conducted via survey method and data gathered through standard questionnaires. 375 people of total 955 staffs in the company were selected as sample size using proportionate stratified random sampling strategy. Results indicate that satisfaction rate was less than the average point and was correlated to the variables of years of experience, political satisfaction, equity feeling, and rewards but a significant correlation to organizational status was not seen. Regression and path analysis show that equity feeling and years of experience had direct effects and rewards, political satisfaction and organizational status had indirect effects on the dependent variable (satisfaction rate).

Rural industrialization or establishing industries in rural area as an important and most prevalent procedure for non agricultural economic development is discussed in this article. Lack of main agricultural production parameters like water resource, rich and suitable  soil, in these areas, in spite of plenty of manpower, directs the situation to day by day immigration rate from rural areas. Industries in the rural areas that have low agricultural potential level, may act as an effective tool for avoiding immigration, keeping them in their homes, and improving diverse social and economic lifestyle indices such as employment, income, level of health and education and access to sanitary facilities. The results of the research clarify a positive correlation between rural industrialization process and life welfare indices improvement in rural areas. Unwanted industrialization impacts and also second immigration wave because of their economic capability must also be considered.