نشریه علوم اجتماعی
پیاپی 4 (زمستان 1383)

Anthony Giddens, a prominent social theoretician of contemporary sociology, has done extensive theoretical efforts in the last three decades. Central to his debates is the theory of structuration, which was first introduced in his book Constitution of society (1984). The theory, aimed at giving an end to dominance of hermeneutic theories on the one hand and structuralism and functionalism on the other hand, blends in a complicated manner elements from these and other previous approaches. To emphasize the procedural character of social life, Giddens uses the term structuration, borrowing it from the French. Furthermore, by using this concept, he avoids structuralist's conception of the structure as an external and constraining entity. In this paper the writer first introduces the theory of structuration and then discuses its methodological foundations.

The aim of this paper is to explain the relationship between generation gap and democracy in Iran in the last fifty years. To do so, the writers have used the results of the national polls conducted in 1974, 1995 and 2002 in their attempt to clarify the activeness or inactiveness of the generation gap by analyzing the differences between the attitudes, values and behaviors of the young and adult generations. The results indicate that, in spite of differences, the generation gap has not been very active in the political and social areas, but because the gap between totalitarianism and democracy has been active, the generation gap has increased, resulting in the strengthening of democracy. The writers also discuss the role of the young generation in the political-social changes aimed at the establishment of democracy in the country.

The aim of this paper is to show that modern media are not totally independent of the older media and that there is, specifically, a kind of language transfer from older media such as television to the modern ones. Although Internet users enjoy relatively more freedom in the virtual reality public domains compared with real public domains, their political communications in negotiation rooms are not independent of the linguistic structures of the previous media such as television. On the other hand, Internet users use the transfer of political discourse from television to Internet as a means to seek political identity.

Collective behavior is regarded as one of the main issues in contemporary political sociology, a social phenomenon that has long challenged political systems. The purpose of this paper is to study the factors affecting the tendency of the students of Shiraz toward collective behavior. To explain collective behavior, we have used Neil Smelser’s theoretical framework and from the structural-functional perspective, collective behavior and the factors affecting it have been identified. The sample consisted of 410 students, selected from a statistical universe of 9326 students. We have used random startified sampling method and Kochrans's technique of calculating the volume of the sample. The results show that the variables age, parents’ education, using television, the internet, satellite, gender, marital status, employment status, place of residence, social background and ethnicity have a significant relationship with the students’ tendency toward collective behavior. The multi-variable regression analysis shows that the amount of using Internet and watching television as well as gender are the most significant variables, explaining 15.1 percent of the changes of the dependent variable. Generally, the findings show that the amount of using Internet has the greatest positive relationship with collective behavior. This is followed by the variables the amount of watching television and age, which are negatively related with collective behavior.

Tolerance is among the issues about which very little experimental research has been conducted in the Iranian society. In this study, based on a sample of 335 students, the relationship between degrees and types of religiosity with social tolerance has been examined. The results show that the more religious a person is, the less tolerance they show towards sexual issues, crime and relationship with non-Muslims but that religiosity has no effect on political tolerance, national tolerance and ethnic tolerance. On the other hand, the effect of the type of religiosity  divided in this study into pluralistic, inclusivist and exclusivist  on types of tolerance is more than that of the degree of religiosity. On the whole, the writers conclude, it is not possible to speak of a one-dimensional relationship between religiosity and tolerance; rather, to find out the exact relationship, one should consider types of religiosity and dimensions of tolerance. In the matters where religious norms are specific and explicit, the religious people show less tolerance. Also, compared with the other variables used in this study, type of religiosity was found to be the most basic variable to explain changes of social tolerance.

Gibbs and Martin build on Durkheim’s view that the degree of social integration is inversely related to the rate of suicide. According to Gibbs and Martin, which is expressed in terms of five axioms, the rate of suicide is a function of the degree of status integration in a society. This theory has been extensively subjected to experimental studies, which have supported its axioms. Most of these studies have used longitudinal data and data at macro level. Since this theory has not been introduced to Persian readers, the purpose of this paper is to introduce the main theoretical basis of the theory and to concentrate on one of its aspects; that is, the rate of women’s participation in the work force as an index of role conflict for explaining suicide among women. Gibbs and Martin believe that this theory is better than alternative theories of Durkheim and others with respect to its testability, range and prediction precision.

The basic objective of this study was to answer the question to what extent the salary received by the staff of the education office of Zahedan has, compared to that received by the staff of other offices, has an effect on their job satisfaction and what the possible consequences are. The statistical universe of the study included all the personnel of the education office of Zahedan as the target society, which was compared with the staff of other social and economic offices of Zahedan. To do so, we used the survey method and a questionnaire. We also used the cluster sampling method for the staff of other offices, which included 424 persons and the class sampling method for the staff of education office, which included 406 persons. According to the results, the staff of the education office showed more dissatisfaction with respect to the five components of job satisfaction; that is, type of work, colleagues, promotion regulations, salary and management. The staff of other offices showed the greatest satisfaction with type of work, salary and promotion regulations, and the staff of the education office showed the greatest satisfaction with colleagues and management. Besides, there was a clear relationship between indirect payment and job satisfaction. Contrary to expectations, the personnel of the education office showed no satisfaction even with the type of their work.