JOURNAL OF THE FACULTY OF LITERATURE AND HUMANITIES (KHARAZMI UNIVERSITY)
Year:2008 | Volume:15 | Issue:58-59 (THE SPECIAL ISSUE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES NO. 4)|Papers Count:7

This paper addresses the age groups as one of the new sources of social inequality and stratification and the way in which differences in cultural orientation as the outcome are taking. The main objective of the paper is to examine the differences or contradictions of values and attitudes of the mentioned groups. To this end, we examined the previous researches according to qualitative meta-analysis method. The results verified that the assumption of the existence a gap between the young and the adult is not real. However, despite the similarities between the fundamental assumptions and end values of age groups, their approaches towards obtaining these values and instrumental orientations are noticeably different. In fact, it can be claimed that some of the structural changes are apparently caused by the spread of learning involving all social and age groups, whereas some others have been influenced by special young groups.

We live in a world full of dramatic changes and varying life styles. Internet is one of the phenomena that have had a large and direct effect on modern society. As we know, the users of information technology (IT) are growing tremendously and since the consequences of the application of internet are not consistent across different cultural, social, economical and political settings, it is of utmost significance to explore the issue and uncover the unidentified aspects. Having acknowledged the fact that social capital and human capital are the major software part of development of any society, the main aim of this research is to add to the current knowledge and information regarding the effects of using internet and IT on social capital and human capital net. In this research, we studied and evaluated social capital of human net against such concepts as trust, support and participation. Human net capital was examined against such parameters as the number of users of the internet, the frequency of using the internet, the importance of using it and the availability of the internet services for users. The basic assumptions of this research are as follows:The patterns of internet use have a positive relationship with rate of social capital net. Also, a similar relationship must hold true between internet use and the rate of human capital net. These assumptions were tested through a survey method.The statistical population comprised of BA, MA, and Ph.D. students of Tehran University in four disciplines; human sciences, base sciences, engineering and arts. The sample size was 400. The sample was selected based on a stratified sampling. The data collected via a questionnaire and verbal interview. The results indicate that the higher the use of the internet, the more the rate of the social capital. In short, the basic assumptions of the research were strongly approved.

Because of the extension of the industrialization process and technological progress which focus exclusively on the quantitative aspect of human life and following the lack of attention to the qualitative aspect of human life, in recent decades scientists of humanities in the West have paid attention to the concept of quality of life. In this vein, psychologists and later sociologists have tried to define and ascertain different indicators and dimensions constituting the concept. The presented paper, after defining the concept, attempts to design an experimental model for measuring different aspects of the concept and proposing a precise definition and an accurate method for measuring quality of life. In doing so, the data were collected through a survey using a questionnaire, which was distributed among 540 15-year-old-and-above citizens of various districts of Isfahan. The following results were obtained:The mean of quality of life for citizens of Isfahan is 3.78 on a scale of 0 to 5, which can be interpreted as high. Also, when considering the relationship between quality of life and age or quality of life and sex, it became clear that there is no significant relationship between these variables. For marital status, however, it appeared that married citizens tend to have a higher quality of life in comparison with single ones.

Since the transition of 1994, South Africa has faced many problems. The state could not even meet the expectation of black people. The whites accepted the rules of the democratic game, but this seems not to work with the blacks. White farmers were being killed and the state showed no earnest reaction. There seems no comprehensive model to keep the country at the same international level as before. The culture and the education of the blacks do not allow them to gain the required abilities to settle their problems. Instead, the state tends to keep the voters and to meet the expectation of the blacks in reducing the sources of the whites. This seems to be out of the constitution and leads to discontent of the whites. The least reaction of them is to leave the country. But without whites it seems to be rather difficult to carry on.

The present research studies the crimes of honor from the sociological point of view. Despite the importance of the issue, no serious experimental study has addressed it yet. Therefore, the current research adopts a new approach in following up the crimes of honor based on the theories relating to the traditional and modern society key words (Modernization views) focusing on Redfield and Durkheim ,among others. Our instrumentation included questionnaires designed by the researchers with reasonably high validity and reliability indices. The statistical population comprised of the 18-64 year – old individuals residing in the urban areas and villages of Dashte Azadegan. A random cluster sampling technique was implemented. Our main question in this research was to see which social factors influence the commitment of honor homicide. It was assumed that belonging to tribal community has a significant effect on the tendency to honor homicide of women. Based on the findings, all the hypotheses, including the main one were approved.

In contemporary developed and developing societies, the problem of ethnic identity has transformed into a global issue. Ethnic identity is one of the human multiple identities that has interactions with other identities, including gender identity, and the vector of these interactions affects the process of definition and redefinition of multiple identities. Applying traditionalist and modernist approaches, this article tries to study ethnic identity of Khoram Abad residents, and the effective factors underlying its formation. The central concern of the study is the interaction between gender identity and ethnic identity among two males and females. The Research population included men and women of above 15 and the sample was selected through proportional stratified technique. Data were gathered through the survey method and analyzed by SPSS software. The findings approved traditionalist theory with an opportunity for new interpretation of modernism theory regarding the formation of women ethnic identity.

The present article attempts to offer a sociological analysis of the Constitutional Movement of Iran by applying Smelser's theory of Structural Strain and, hence, to evaluate the theory. The analysis of the movement reveals that the Iranian society in the late Nasseri era and early stages of the rule of Muzafarudin Shah lacked any functional equilibrium in its political and economic structure. However, once these objective crises were situated in specific subjective grounds, that is, Shia-Iranian political culture, it led to the collapse of the foundations of legitimacy of political system preparing the third conducive ground for collective uprising against the status quo. The trio crisis structurally led to material and evaluative contradictions between the society and the government, exerting economic, political and ideological strains on the three main strata of the society, that is, the bazaaris, the intellectuals, and the clergy. In a short period, these structural stains spilled over from the objective level to the subjective level, leading to the formation of generalized beliefs among these leading strata of the Constitutionals' Movement about the nature, origin, and quality of an outlet from the existing crises. These strata did not agree on what and why of the strain, but agreed on how to get out of the structural strains. Under these circumstances, the occurrence of some provocative events which were the objective examples acknowledging the aforementioned beliefs strongly provoked the bazaaris, ulama and intellectuals and led to the materialization of  collective mobilization potentials. The leadership of this mobilization was with the Ulama and intellectuals while its logistic sources (i.e. financial, monetary and support) was with the bazaaris. Meanwhile mosques and pulpits served as the communication channels of the movement for the promotion of the generalized beliefs and establishing contacts between the leadership and the mobilized body. Such a mobilization materialized through sit-ins, public strikes and meaningful migrations. Finally, the unconvincing structural adjustment and insufficient suppression by the government plus inefficiency of the suppressive system due to internal rifts on the one hand and within the suppressive forces on the other hand led to the ineffectiveness of the suppressive system and victory of the movement.In the concluding part of the paper, relying on the findings of the present research, the theory of structural strain has been evaluated in such areas as Ignorance of the cultural context, intra-systemic factors, unwanted factors, dynamism and volatility of the movement, and, finally, the composite ideology of the leaders of the movement in distinguishing the problem and its causes.