فصلنامه جامعه شناسی کاربردی
سال بیست و چهارم شماره 1 (پیاپی 49، بهار 1392)

By the end of the 1950s, the number of people aged above 65 was 200 million worldwide. By the end of the last century, this population increased threefold to 590 million. By 2025, this aged population is estimated to rise to 1100 million. Generally, the increase in the rate of the world population is 1.7%, but the projected rate of increase of the aged population is 2.5% per year (German, 2002). Similarly, Iranian society will have an effective and operative group who are going to shape its communities and networks. Iran is developing into a crowded country with 75 million people. It has a rate of 2.8% increase in total elderly population compared to the National Fertility Rate of 1.2% (Iran Statistics & Census Centre or ISCC, 2007a). According to the ISCC, in 2007 people who were in their 60s and above formed 6.8% of the Iranian population with national rate of increase rate at 2.8% (ISCC, 1997, 2007c). Based on the civic law and judiciary system, the age of the elderly at the first year of retirement was defined above 60, which is five years less than WHO’s definition for old age. On the other hand, there has been some evidence of local and national references to such social problems as reduction in social participation, social trust, social relations and support, communal activity, civic engagement (CE), economic and social security, leisure activities, mobility, neighborhoods, and safe areas. Among other problems are decline in social indicators like societal networks, social cohesion and inclusion, civic engagement, social capital (SC), and increase of informal and familial solidarity which result in social exclusion (Dinie, 2007; Firouz Abadi & Imani Jajarmi, 2007; Ghaffari, 2001; Ghasemi, Esmaieli & Rabeie, 2007; Joshanlou & Qaedi, 2010; Joshanlou, Rostami, & Nosrat Abadi, 2007; Saadat, 2006a). Decreasing participation was reported from local communities in Khuzestan province and Iran during years 2001 to 2007. Such statistics have led social scientists to think about deterrents of social participation (SP) and other declining factors. At the moment, severe decrease in SP amongst the increasing population of elderly is assumed to be happening because of injustice and social inequality. Iran and our research community in particular - Khuzestan province and Ahwaz city- is a multi-ethnic society, where the resources of community and society should be distributed in a justified and equal manner. Every study in its policies should attend to this issue and special groups specifically in cases involving CE and SWB. Elderly, women, ethnic groups, and enhancing their well-being and the situation of social problems are areas that require further attention. This study looks forward to understanding the reasons for such neglected interest in these areas and hope to share a new vision for policy making at micro level for aged citizens of Ahwaz city. An attempt is made to investigate the role of variables such as social participation and background characteristics in urban lifestyle of the aged in the hope of ensuring a better health and an acceptable end-life condition for them. Research population in this survey includes the elderly of Ahwaz, who were 60 years old and above. During 1997 to 2007, Ahwaz showed a higher ratio of aged citizens among all cities of Khuzestan province (3.1% in total aged population of the province). All data were based on KSCC and ISCC annual reports in 2007 (KSCC, 2007). The study has evaluated the factors of SP. Theories of participation, social capital and trust, and inequality were reviewed. Consequently, six factors were considered. Regarding the last census in 2007, total population of Ahwaz city was 969,843 inhabitants, of whom 51594 were aged 60 and above (male: 26,294 and female: 25,345). Unfortunately, in the national and provincial reports on population and census, there is no independent data for ethnicity. Research sample was obtained from two municipal zones, 3rd and 8th, using cluster sampling. Overall, about 163 aged citizens were selected upon random sampling.The data collection was done by employing the questionnaire of SAP (scale of aged participation) that is classified into 21 items with 5 options in Likert format (1= Strongly Disagree, 2= Disagree, 3= Neither Agree Nor Disagree, 4=Agree, and 5= Strongly Agree). The internal reliability of the questionnaire was based on Cronbach’s alpha and split-half method, which is well adjusted to the four basic items in the SAP. Discussion of Results & The findings indicate that social inclusion and trustworthiness are the main factors in SP. Other variables include social inequality and urban ownership, gender, socioeconomic status, NGOs membership, length of residency in urban area per year, satisfaction with urban services, marital, employment, health status, education and literacy, and fatalism restrictively (β≥. 201, ρ=. 005). Interestingly, the religious along fatalism have divert significant relationships with SP. At the end, some recommendations were suggested. For example, reinforcing plans for increasing participation and concentrate them on senior citizens and women, developing social networks and communal connections, improving social justice and trust.

In general, the model of decision making is discussed in the economic field. This model includes a five-step process that leads to a purchase. These steps include identifying the problem, seeking, evaluation of alternatives, selection and evaluation after the acquisition. Following the economic model of decision making, Mate selection can also be considered as a process. But for adapting the model of mate selection with the economic model of decision making, some theoretical modifications and adjustments has been done. Therefore, the mate selection process can be divided into three steps: 1- Seeking the potential partner 2- Searching information about a potential partner, and 3-Final decision and consultation about this decision. Sociology has been long faced with this problem that how can examine empirically the relationships between entities at different levels of society. In response to this problem, for the first time in 1940, the concept of “social network” was introduced by Radcliffe Brown in anthropology. The researchers have used the concept of “social network” as a metaphor to describe a complex set of relationships between people. There are several and almost similar definitions of the concept of “social network” that generally includes following points: 1-Social network includes social relations and social actors. 2- Social network is a set of social relations among the social actors. There are various types of social relations. Social actors can also be individuals, groups, and organizations. 3- In the network literature, “Tie” or “link” is the “social relation” and “node” is the “social actor”. Based on the points provided above and the subject of mate selection, the social network of mate selection is defined as “A set of social relations among the social actors who involve and play a role in the mate selection process including seeking the partner (introducing), Searching information about a partner (inquiry) and consulting with person about the final decision for marring with the target potential mate”. According to the Network theorists, social networks have different characteristics. One of the major categories of network characteristics has been carried out by Israel and Randers. According to him, these characteristics include structural characteristics of network (including size, diversity and composition of the network) and functional characteristics of network (social support). The following have been described each of these characteristics and its relationships to the subject of this research. Network size is Journal of Applied Sociology, 24th Year, 6 Vol. 49, No. 1, Spring 2013 the total number of people with whom one is connected or the total number of people who provide many different types of support for him. The larger the network size of mate selection, the person (respondent or “ego” in this study) will receive more support during the marital life. Since the chance of social support receiving from the network members of mate selection increases through the increasing the number of network members. The larger the network size of network, the chance of receiving support from one person among the set of persons increases. Network composition is determined by the percentage of certain relationships within the network; Percentage of relatives, friends, neighbors and colleagues. The more the ratio of relatives’ relations in the social network of mate selection, because of the social support that they provide for individuals throughout life, Leads to a more satisfaction in marital life. Network diversity is referred to the difference or similarity of network members with each other and central person (“ego”) according to the attributes such as sexuality, age, education and etc. The more the diversity in the social network of mate selection, because of the social support that provided for individuals throughout life, Leads to a more satisfaction in marital life. 1- The larger the network size of network, the chance of receiving support from one person among the set of persons increases. 2- The more the ratio of relatives’ relationships in the social network of mate selection, because of the social support that they provide for individuals throughout life, Leads to a more satisfaction in marital life. 3- The more the diversity in the social network of mate selection, because of the social support that provided for individuals throughout life, Leads to a more satisfaction in marital life. The research conducted by survey method and data was collected by the interview technique. In this study, ego- centered network approach was used; meaning that the information about the characteristics of the social network mate selection were collected by the ego (the married men in this study); rather than of referring to all members of the network for information collecting.Statistical population of this study was “the all married men in Mashhad city in 1389”. The sampling method of this study was the combination of multi-stage clustering and stratified sampling. Cochran's formula is used to determine sample size that based on that formula, 180 married men has been estimated as a sample.Discussion of Results and Conclutions: Descriptive findings showed that - The average size of social network of mate selection of each person was two (persons); meaning that on average two persons in the process of marriage, including the introduction of a marriage partner, and investigating about wife and counsel, had an active involvement.- Network composition of mate selection was more relatives; 80 percent of members of network had relative relationship with the ego and 80% of them are the family members. Overall, among the network of mate selection, the percentage of certain relationships with an order of preference, was relatives (80%, among which the 80 were the family members of ego), friends (7%), neighbors (4 %), colleagues (3%), and college classmates, acquaintances and in the last were strangers.- Members of social network of mate selection had a little diversity according to the economic - social status and it reflects the homogeneity of members of social network of mate selection.- Social network of mate selection provided more informational and advice support for ego at the mate selection process time and provide more social support during the marital life.Social Network of Mate Selection and Marital Satisfaction Among the Married Men 7 - 66% of network mate selection members of married men were women and 33% were males. This point is quite consistent with Heidari's findings (1379).Therefore men get helped women more and women get helped men more.- Approximately, 80 percent of members of social network of mate selection had low and very low economic – social status, since the number of women in the social network of mate selection is more than men and women in the variables of economic – social status composed of education, job and salary had low rank. - On average, people's marital satisfaction is strong.Since the hypotheses of this research were there- variable, in order to check this hypotheses, structural equation modeling was used. Lisrel analysis showed that all three hypotheses were confirmed.Multiple regression results show that the size of social network of mate selection, has a large and significant effect on the diversity of social status of members of social network of mate selection (Beta coefficient of network size on social support was 0.71). The size of social network of mate selection has a positive impact on social support of social network of mate selection during the marital life; (Beta coefficient of network size on social support was 0.6).The social support of social network of mate selection has a positive effect on marital satisfaction during the marital life; it means that the more social support provided by social network of mate selection to ego, the marital satisfaction of ego increases. (Beta coefficient of support on marital satisfaction was 0.161.)The duration of marriage and the economic–social status of ego have positive effect on the marital satisfaction. Importantly, this research showed the important role of relative relationships on marriage. The presence of relatives in mate selection is a characteristic of Iranian culture as a collectivist culture. The relatives have longer familiar with the ego and have a greater knowing of personality and Morality of ego. The relatives who know the ego and also be involved in the mate selection process, supported him during his life, Therefore ego is more satisfied from his marital life, because of more supporting provided to him. Meanwhile, the more the number of people who involved in mate selection process – or the more the number of relatives involved in mate selection process - ego is more satisfied from marital life because of the more social support received.

This study seeks to investigate social factors influencing political consumerism. Political consumerism is influenced by people’s individual qualities on the one hand, and by social qualities, on the other. Political consumerism is closely related to goods and services of consumption policies. In other words, political consumerism is defined as power relation and how resources are used and allocated. Political consumers choose services and goods based on their political moral values and not because of the good or service per se. Political consumers are social players, who consciously engage in the economy and the market and their behavior affects social relations. In this regard, many studies indicate that a relationship exists between consumerism and social relations, particularly in issues associated with identity and culture. Therefore, this study’s hypothesis is that individuals with a higher share of social capital tend to have higher political consumption. Similarly, individuals with stronger social relations with others and more trust in people and other institutions tend to engage in political consumerism more than others. Of course, one should not overlook the fact that control variables such as gender, income and education also influence individuals’ political consumerism. Accordingly, main research objectives are:1. Measuring respondents’ share of social capital2. Analyzing the amount of political consumption and its dimensions among respondents3. Analyzing the relationship between social capital and political consumerism among respondents Methods and Materials: Survey method is applied in this study. Population includes all undergraduate students at Isfahan University from all disciplines in the educational year 2011-2012. Research sample included 250 individuals who were selected by cluster sampling method so that 250. However, only 215 remained after discarding spoilt questionnaires. We applied two questionnaires including Author-designed political consumerism questionnaire; to evaluate political participation. This questionnaire is designed in the manner of Likert scale, containing 6 questions, according to political consumerism model designed by Setwell and Hugh (Setwell and Hugh, 2003). In this study, reliability coefficients of this scale were found to be 0.71 using Cronbach’s alpha. Studying test validity based on similar tests and calculating internal consistency coefficient show that this questionnaire enjoys high reliability and validity. The study was divided into three levels of behavioral, motivational and habitual. This scale is an instrument for evaluating individuals’ political consumerism and each question is set on a scale of 1 (completely agree) to 5 (completely disagree). Social capital questionnaire; this questionnaire contains questions about dimensions of social capital and social networks. These dimensions were extracted from existing theories about social capital (Putnam indices) and questions were designed for the scales. Using Cronbach’s alpha, reliability coefficients for social trust (15 questions) and social networks (21 questions) dimensions were found 0.75 and 0.71 and 0.73 for the entire questionnaire (36 questions), respectively. In the preliminary study, findings showed that there was no need for deleting any of the statements. This scale is an instrument for evaluating individuals’ social capital and each question was scored on a scale of 1 (completely agree) to 5 (completely disagree) and 3 questions in each dimension and 6 questions in total from the 36 questions are inversely scored. Discussion of Results & The purpose of this study was to theoretically and experimentally analyze the effect of social capital on political consumption among students of Isfahan University. Results indicated a significant relationship between social capital and interest in value, ethical and political considerations of commodity consumption. This corresponds with the theories of Micheletti, John and Klein, Andersen and Tobiasen, Stoll and Hooghe, Dawson and Valendorf., which have shown that social trust and social associations in people with a high social capital have considerable effect on their actions and leads to their tendency toward boycotting or encouraging purchase of necessities according to their own political, cultural and ethical values. In other words, there appears to be significant differences among students under study in terms of social capital and this manifests itself in their political consumption. In general, findings indicate a positive relation between social capital and political consumerism. Therefore, research hypothesis is confirmed. In other words, individuals with a higher social capital consume politics more than those with lower social capital.

One of the issues in the field of sociology that has attracted the attention of many social scientists is the important role of social determinants in human health. In spite of the significant progress of medical sciences in identification of pathogeneses and treatment methods, sociologists are interested in the study of health and illness and identification of the effective factors. The results of sociological studies indicate that health is multi-faceted, and may be affected by cultural, economic and social factors in addition to biological factors. Most of medical sociologists believe that social factors play an important role in human health; biological and medical explanations, which ignore the significant role of social and cultural factors on health and illness patterns, are insufficient. This has led sociologists to study the social and cultural determinants of health. This research aims to investigate the effect of some social and cultural determinants such as religiosity, healthy lifestyle and level of social support on health among university students. The present study examines the direct and indirect effect of religiosity on health. As a variable, health has been investigated in three physical, mental and social dimensions. The indirect effect of religiosity on health has been studied through social support and healthy lifestyle. In order to study the relationship between religiosity and health, theories of Emile Durkheim, Kingsley Davis, Milton Yinger, Thomas ODea’s functionalism theory, and Max Weber and Peter Berger’s meaning theories have been utilized. Each of these approaches has implications for the relationship between religiosity and health. According to the functionalists, religion unifies society and preserves social integration. Also, religion provides a background for integration and categorizes people according to special ideology in peer social groups. This categorization could be a factor for promotion of intergroup integration against outer groups that follow different opinions and ideas. On the other hand, in relation to the research question, Berger and Weber's approach also seems important. According to these theorists religion, in addition to other functions, provides a meaningful and purposeful life in a world that is constantly meaningless. According to Weber, regardless of level of rationality in the society, individuals have a psychological need to find the world meaningful and purposeful. As a result of his view, religion is not functionless in the modern era. So from Weber’s point of view, it can be inferred that even in new forms of society religiosity can have a positive effect on health. Therefore, religious people that are more likely to control their carnal desires show less risky behavior and as a result, they may have a healthier life. In general, implication of functionalists and meaning theorists can be shown in a causal model as a theoretical model of this study as follow:Based on the proposed model and the review of literature, the following hypotheses can be reasonably inferred from:1. Religiosity has a positive effect on healthy lifestyle.2. Religiosity has a positive effect on social support.3. Social support has a positive effect on healthy lifestyle.4. Healthy lifestyle has a positive effect on health.5. Social support has a positive effect on health.6. Religiosity has a positive effect on health. In this research, a survey method was used to investigate the relationship between variables. It was performed based on a sample of 350 students of the University of Tabriz. Participants filled out a questionnaire containing mental, physical and social health measures (i.e., HS-36). Also, it contained measures for healthy lifestyles and social support as intervening variables and for religiosity as an independent variable. The measures enjoyed a high level of reliability and validity. Findings reveal that religiosity, healthy lifestyle, and social support have significant positive correlations with physical, mental, and social health and consequently with the general measure of health. In addition, the results of multivariate regression analysis reveal that these independent variables explain 36.8% of variance of general measure of health. However, the explained variance of mental health and social health (respectively, 31.2% and 32.6%) are almost twice as that of the physical health. Furthermore, the results of path analysis indicate that religiosity significantly and positively has both direct and indirect effects on general and mental health. Religiosity has also a significant indirect effect through social support and healthy lifestyle on physical and social health but it has no direct effect on these two dimensions of health. In general, the findings support the implications of functionalist theories on the positive effect of religion on healthy lifestyle and health, particularly mental and social health. Discussion of Results and In summary it can be said that the results of different statistical tests to examine the relationship between religiosity and health indicate that religiosity has a significant impact on promotion of health and its dimensions. According to the mentioned theoretical discussions concerning the relationship between religiosity and health, these results were expected. Indeed, the findings confirm these theories. According to these theories, the positive effect of religiosity on health and its dimensions can be explained through integration, ascetic and meaning functions of religion. A) Integration Function of ReligionAccording to the functionalists, religion unifies society, preserves social integration and motivates social unity. According to this approach, religious thoughts based on communicating and interacting with others extensively, make religious people incline to develop social relationships and social support. As a result, this leads to receiving lots of support from relatives and friends. On the other hand the extension of religion in society has caused religious people to join religious networks in addition to family, relatives, friends and occupational networks and hence have larger social networks than less religious people. Therefore, the expansion of social communications and joining diverse social networks provides a background for receiving social support for religious people. Accordingly, religion plays a positive role in promotion of social health by expanding religious people’s supportive networks.B) Meaning Function of ReligionAlthough Weber and Berger, like functionalists, emphasize on social functions of religion but they consider meaning function of religion. Based on this approach, by offering spiritual responses to human ultimate questions, making life purposeful, and coping with problems, religion acts as an obstacle to human meaningless crisis. As a result, the religious people that are less suffering from meaninglessness and aimlessness can better cope with difficulties and have mental peace and comfort. Therefore, the findings of the present study confirms the mentioned theories concerning to the positive effect of religiosity on mental health.C) Ascetic Function of ReligionAnother implication of Weber and Berger’s theory regarding the relationship between religion and health is the positive effect of religiosity on physical health. These theorists’ approaches imply that religion is an important factor to control the instinctive desires. Participating in religious ceremonies causes religious people to control their carnal desires.So the findings of the present study based on a positive and significant relationship between religion and health confirm that ascetic content of religion about controlling carnal desires and avoiding illegal affairs causes religious people to control their instinctive desires and prevents them from high-risk behaviors and consequently is more physically healthy.

Studies show that responsibility in every society regulates social and humanitarian relations and increases empathy and altruism among people. It can be effective in improvement of social security, social functions, academic success, mental health, self-esteem and also self-actualization. In addition, reinforcing responsibility leads to a decrease in social deviance, delinquency, crime and society’s behavioral problems. Given the important role of social responsibility, enhancing it among citizens of society is of crucial importance. In this regard, it is necessary to identify the factors associated with this concept. So the question is what factors are associated with individual responsibility? Since responsibility is a part of acquired characteristics, the role of cultural factors in relation to its context cannot be ignored. Thus, in order to answer this question, the present study focuses on cultural factors influencing responsibility. This paper tries to study and compare the relationship between cultural factors and the level of responsibility among teenagers of Bane and Qorveh cities, assessing the degree of youth responsibility and the importance of explanation of cultural factors in relation to this variable. The survey method has been used, and the data has been collected by questionnaire. Research sample included all 18-14 year adolescents who were living in Ghorveh and Bane cities. Considering the population and an error of 4%, a sample size of 598 respondents was obtained, of whom 339 belonged to Bane and 258 lived in Ghorveh. Sampling method was stratified cluster sampling. In this study, the dependent variable is responsibility rate which was measured by Neo (1992) questionnaire. In order to measure religiosity, Gluck and Stark (1965) religiosity questionnaire was utilized in which various dimensions of religiosity (including ideological, empirical, practical, and outcomes) are measured. Also different types of media usage including TV (network of provincial and national networks), radio (internal, external), newspapers and magazines, satellite, internet by respondents has been asked. To assess the reliability, Cronbach's alpha coefficient scale was used.Discussion of Results & Comparison of responsibility between Bane and Ghorveh cities indicate that responsibility mean in Bane is more than Ghorveh. It seems that in terms of ethnicity and religion Bane is more uniform than Ghorveh. Due to shared characteristics and common features among themselves, Bane citizens have stronger feelings of empathy, closeness and belonging to a group. In such circumstances, people are more responsible for the well-being of society in which they live and also for each other. But in comparison with Bane, in Ghorveh, because of the lack of ethnic and religious homogeneity, there may exist a weak separation and division. Comparison of responsibility between Kurdish and the other tribes and between Sunni and Shiite indicate high level of mean among kurdish and sunni respondents. Because shiites and non-kurds in other cities of Kurdistan belong themselves to the larger group (society), they feel less responsible, whereas the sunnies and the kurds in Kurdistan province have more responsibility and feel belonged to their city and province. Yet further studies are needed to confirm this issue which is beyond the scope of this study.The average difference among the sexes in the responsibility variable indicates that there is no difference between men and women. In terms of the relationship between parental education and responsibility of the juvenile, results indicate that in both cities, there is no significant relationship between fathers’ education and respondents’ responsibility, but the level of responsibility is related to the rate of mothers’ education in Ghorveh.Another cultural variable examined in this study, was the degree of religiosity of adolescents. This variable, along with its four dimensions (religious, experimental, practices, and outcomes) in both cities have a significant relationship with the dependent variable. It seems that in our society, religious beliefs and values play an important role, and act as a monitoring force which control the behavior of people. The results show that those who have higher levels of religiosity are more responsible.Results show that among the mass media and new media and information and communication technology, the mass media in both cities have significant relationship with juvenile responsibility. Results of multivariate analysis are focused on the role of religion and the media in juveniles’ responsibility. According to Bandura, in modern societies, mass media plays an important role in shaping social behaviors and attitudes. In terms of effectiveness in the face of widespread public and media patterns, it can be said that many behaviors are learned through the television and other media. The authorities in charge of mass media should pay more attention to the issue of social responsibility, with proper planning for using capabilities of the national media.Considering the fact that environmental factors play an important role in forming and modifying behaviors such as responsibility, it is suggested that in addition to conducting extensive research in this field, factors associated with increasing responsibility will be identified and strengthened.

Students of each country are the next generation of that. Making decision about educational, teaching and training programs is of crucial importance. Thus each country can consider suitable approach toward students for making decisions about them (codifying them). One of the methods is transferring concepts via educational routes. It refers to the messages which are conveyed by text books, educational rules, pictures in the books, etc. Presupposition of the government is that, students perceive these messages as they are. Actually students are considered as reactive agents who consume these messages.But we must know that we are living in an era in which a person's life is exposed to different information sources such as: family values, peer groups, mass media etc. Thus an individual has changed form a reactive to an active agent who can chose and has his own perception of different messages. Resistance or reproductions are two different decoding methods for messages. The aim of the present study is analyzing comparatively the textbooks content among Iran and Syria as a representation of the formal culture of Veil. Content analysis is used in the present study to analyze 2075 pictorial data included in text books in primary and guidance school in Iran and in Syria. After victory of Islamic revolution in 1357, big changes happened in cultural foundation of the society. The Governments by making use of such institutions especially education system and schools has injected its own view point to the people. Different events, such as Cultural Revolution in universities, correction of text books all show that individuals in the society have become familiar with the principals of Islamic concepts and political views.In the present study views of Antonio Gramsci, Piere Bourdieu and Michal Foucault have been used in order to construct a framework for analysis of the messages perceived from books. According to Gramsci hegemony is domination of one social group over another social group. The governing social group by using different tools, life style, thinking method, value system, etc would inject itself to the governed social group and the governed group accept them in order to join other social groups. Gramsci by creating some concepts such as civil society, hegemony and cultural management tried to refer to a system which although its principals are close to the governing group but it has formed according to a cultural agreement between other social groups. Contrary to the past which force brought domination, today cultural tools such as education system, cultural centers, books, schools can boost domination. Bourdieu says that why symbolic order is accepted by everyone although this order can stop progression and development. Violence Symbolic gives this opportunity to the governing class to define reality in its own favorite way thus control its position. In fact according to Bourdiue Violence Symbolic has a complete connection with symbolic source. This symbolic power is a potential for using power, thus people will control their behaviors extensively and try to adopt with sources of violence. It must be mentioned that all these cases must be produced in dialogue environment which shows and transfers views, norms, ideas and rules of the governing class. Foucault is perception of dialogue can shows that civil society and institutions within it or even agents acting in it would likely to do what actions and express what issues. Although dialogue differs from ideology but resistance against dialogue is in fact questioning ideology which based on the dialogue has formed. As the definition of one word is different in different cultures, the meaning can also differ in different dialogues, even they can also differ in different dialogues and they can be paradoxical. In fact dialogue is one of the specific problematic issues about ideology.In this study the pictorial content of text books in Iran and Syria was assessed by content analysis technique. Both two countries are Islamic ones and has republic governmental system. Although their primary view points about world are similar, but there are big difference between the appearance and veil of their population. Veil rule was passed after Islamic revolution and all people have to obey it. But in Syria there is no specific rule for Veil. The present study has examined 2075 pictorial data of educational text books in Iran and in Syria. Pictures were extracted by codifying them by the researcher and after codifying them they were delivered to SPSS software for analyzing the data. Totally, 2057 records from 1104 picture in 21 textbooks from primary and guidance school were gathered. Content analysis was used to analyze obtained data. In was tried to analyze messages conveyed by these pictures. The messages were codified by education system and students were supposed to decode them.Discussion of results and Veil features (variables) which were selected were categorized as following: hair style, head style, type and color of the Veil which covers head, type and color of the dress, type and color of the pants, type and color of the shoe. They were classified based on sex in three different age groups in 21 text book. Thus by combining the above features (variables), it can be observed that the formal common Veil in examined books in Iran is "shirts with high sleeves, coat, pants, shoes in dark colors, beard and mustache" for men and "Maghnae (a kind of scarf), Chador (a kind of Veil covering all the body), Manto (a kind of dress), Pants and shoes in dark colors" for women. In Syria, "Coat and pants, tie, shoe and mustache" for men and shirt and skirt, long dress, shoe and slipper" for women. These kinds of Veils are advertised by the governing group. Education system uses text book as a tool for transferring intended concepts, in fact they are an ideological tool at the service of political aims of the government. Audience as will be referred to in different parts of the study would decode the message or in fact reproduce them or even resist against them. A point which must be emphasized is that resistance must not be considered in its negative sense but it means that limitations of message because of creativity in decoding by audience is put away and another form of the message (different from what it was produced) is perceived.Governments for holding social order and controlling affairs, use cultural tools such as schools, books magazines, local communities, cinema etc, and gradually replace them for some ordering organizations like police force. Although having some levels of Violence is necessary for holding order in society but government try to convey their ideological principals by using cultural tools which are accepted among people. They use hegemony and internal satisfaction of people instead using power. It results in formation of civil society inside political systems which by cultural management will continue their domination. Human resources in each country are the most important force for development and expansion of the country. Great investment must be done in this field and planning must consider all different aspects. As it was mentioned each country identifies all its principals, values, norms and rules based on a specific dialogue. But it must be mentioned that people are not located only (students) in a closed environment named school and education system. Especially today, Internet, satellite, different cultural, scientific sites are available to them and surround them. Each one is trying to convey its own concept to the individual. In formation of sources are paradoxical, rejecting each other, thus people faces a big world of paradoxes. This issue and high speed of change result in a gap between the organizational culture and other cultures provided by other informal sources this results in different perceptions about a transferred concept. The person has changed into an active resistance against it, and he/she has different perceptions and readings of them. One of the conveyed concepts by book is Veil. Each country reflects this concept according to its principals and norms.

Unstructured use of motor vehicles has created many social problems especially in large cities. Heavy traffic, fatal accidents, obesity and less mobility, voice pollution, air pollution, physical harms such as headache, eye sting, respiratory diseases, heart diseases, some cancers and finally increasing of consumption of the fossil fuel are some direct consequences of the expansion of the using motor vehicles in large cities. A basic strategy in confrontation with these social problems, is expansion of using bicycle in urban transportation particularly for short trips. Using bicycle has widely been considered in many large cities in developed countries because of economical, traffic, physical and the environmental advantages but has not been developed in Iran. Concerning the difficulties of Iranian large cities in base possibilities in transportation and also extraordinary production of the motor vehicles that has been reached to 2 million cars in a year, using bicycles is necessary. Many factors have been presented for explaining of the barriers of the expansion of the using bicycle for transportation but on the basis of the attitude-behavior theories in sociological area it seems that there is a significant relationship between attitude toward bicycle and using bicycle. Attitude is a negative or positive emotional state into a subject that consists of three dimensions of cognitive, behavioral and sentimental. Allport believed that attitude affects on ones response to objects and the related situations. Fishbein and Ajzen in framework of the reasoned action theory showed that there is a close relationship between attitude toward a specific behavior and doing that behavior but there is a mediator between them in which is titled intension that is ones tendency to act. Results of the meta analysis of the research that have investigated relationship between attitude and behavior show that attitude can explain behavior but the rate of the coefficient in every topic or area is different. Method and Materials: The research is a survey study. The population is all men aged 15-64 in Isfahan. Sample size is 400 persons that were selected by means of random multi stage sampling method. The measurement tool is two researcher-made scales including using bicycle and attitude into bicycle. The using bicycle scale was divided into two dimensions of working use and creational use, and attitude toward bicycle was defined into two aspects of cognitive and emotional attitude. Validity of the scales was measured by factor analysis technique, and reliability was calculated by cronbach alpha coefficient. Based on the results, KMO test is 0.933 for using bicycle scale, and 0.838 for attitude toward bicycle scale, which show that the sample size is adequate. Moreover, Bartlett test, is significant for both scales, suggesting that there is a significant correlation among variables. In total, the factor analysis of the using bicycle scale, after the elimination of 1 item, extracted two factors, including working and creational, and also factor analysis of the attitude toward bicycle scale, after the deletion of 6 items, extracted two factors, including cognitive and emotional. The results show that the explained variance in the using bicycle scale is 56.8 percent and in the attitude toward bicycle scale is 34.5 percent. The reliability of the scales has been calculated using alpha cronbach coefficient, that the value is 0.93 for the using bicycle scale, and 0.68 for the attitude toward bicycle scale.In total, 400 persons answered the questionnaires. The mean age of respondents is 33.7 years. 190 respondents (47.5%) are single and 209(52.2%) are married. 387 respondents (96.8%) are employed and 13(3.2%) unemployed. 11 respondents (2.8%) are illiterate, 84(21%) have education lesser diploma, 146(36.5%) are diploma, and 157 respondents (39.3%) have academic education. On the basis of the scales results, the mean using bicycle score with range of 0-76 is 18.02 and the mean attitude toward bicycle score with range of 14-70 is 51.3. Is there a significant relationship between attitude toward bicycle and using bicycle?For the purpose of the measurement of the relationship between two constructs totally, and their dimensions, simple linear regression test has been used. The results are presented in Table 1.On the basis of the Table 1, the relationship between attitude toward bicycle and using bicycle is significant. The table also shows that the relationships between various dimensions of the two constructs are significant, except the relationship between emotional attitude toward bicycle and creational use of bicycle.In the framework of the demographic variables, five variables including marital status, employment situation, age, income, and education level have been considered and their relationship with the using bicycle has been analyzed using suitable statistical tests. The results show that there is a significant relationship between marital status and using bicycle and the single men use bicycle more than married men. There is no significant relationship between employment situation and using bicycle. There is a significant relationship between age and using bicycle and with arising age using bicycle is decreased. There is a significant relationship between income and using bicycle and with increasing income using bicycle is decreased. And finally there is no significant relationship between education level and using bicycle. Discussion and The main goal of this research is to investigate relationship between attitude toward bicycle and using bicycle among the men in Isfahan. Based on the descriptive research findings, mean using bicycle score is low in Iran. This situation is not satisfactory for a metropolis such as Isfahan that has an increasing population and motor vehicles, and also has many difficulties in urban base facilities and must be changed. In addition to mean attitude toward bicycle is high that is an opportunity for urban planners.Inferential findings show that attitude toward bicycle has a significant impact on using bicycle. In other words, increase attitude toward bicycle means an increase in using bicycle for short trips. This research finding theoretically confirm relation between attitude and behavior. Moreover it is compatible with results of the research that show there is significant relationship between attitude toward bicycle and using bicycle. There is an inverse significant relationship between age and using bicycle and with rising age using bicycle is decreased. This research finding shows that urban infrastructure in Isfahan for using bicycle is not available and consequently with rising age, bicycle risk is increased. There is a direct significant relationship between income rate and using bicycle and with increasing income rate, using bicycle is also increased. This research finding is rooted in social prestige bicycle and higher classes prefer to use motor vehicle for transportation instead of bicycle. There is a significant relationship between marital status and using bicycle and single men use bicycle more than married men but there is no significant relationship between education level and using bicycle. This research findings show that with rising education level in spite of rising income, using bicycle is not decreased. And finally there is no significant relationship between employed and unemployed persons in using bicycle.On the basis of the evidences such as increasing population and motor vehicles in large cities in Iran and existence of difficulties in urban infrastructure for transportation, expansion of the culture of using bicycle is necessary. Findings of this research show that there is a significant relationship between attitude toward bicycle and using bicycle. So this article suggests that for diffusion of using bicycle culture, urban planners must try to create positive attitude toward bicycle among citizens and increase it.

Gender inequality is a part of socio-economic inequality in all societies. Overcoming discrimination is most important in the poverty reduction programmes every societies especialy in developing countries and a useful tools for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals that announced by UNDP. The Gander development index (GDI) is often considered a “gender-sensitive extension of the HDI” (Klasen 245). It addresses gender-gaps in life expectancy, education, and incomes. It uses an “inequality aversion” penalty, which creates a development score penalty for gender gaps in any of the categories of the Human Development Index which include life expectancy, adult literacy, school enrollment, and logarithmic transformations of per-capita income. The GDI cannot be used independently from the Human Development Index (HDI) score and so, it cannot be used on its own as an indicator of gender-gaps. Only the gap between the HDI and the GDI can actually be accurately considered; the GDI on its own is not an independent measure of gender-gaps. In the years since its creation in 1995, much debate has arisen surrounding the reliability, and usefulness of the Gender Development Index (GDI) in making adequate comparisons between different countries and in promoting gender-sensitive development. The GDI is particularly criticized for being often mistakenly interpreted as an independent measure of gender-gaps when it is not, in fact, intended to be interpreted in that way, because it can only be used in combination with the scores from the Human Development Index, but not on its own. Additionally, the data that is needed in order to calculate the GDI is not always readily available in many countries, making the measure very hard to calculate uniformly and internationally (Ibid). So the participation and role of women in various cultural, social, economic and political fields determine levels of development indicators in each country around the world. Existing data’s shows that women's condition in Iran’s during last decades have dual status. In terms of some HDI indicators component such as health and education, women in Iran are in a situation more better than most countries in the region, but their share of participation rate in labor market and income earning is in very low level in compare with other developing countries. In this case Lorestan province is one of the most poor areas. This study’s research method was been second data analysis as a interpretive approach, and critical perspective. While focusing on theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the gender development index be discussed. So this research took about the methods that used here is numerical taxonomy and data matrix - have been used too. Discussion of Results & As mentioned in state of problems, here the finding shows that Lorestan gender development indicators (GDI) are in low level. But inter provinces analysis among town and cities shows many different among districts. For examples in field of cultural- educational indicators, cities of Borujerd and Khorramabad occupied high developed rank, and then Doroud and Poldokhtar rank is relatively developed cities, some other cities such as Koohdasht,and Azna been relatively disadvantaged and finally most poor sections of cities are located in Aligoodarz and Delfan. Base on results and this study finding a longtime development plans is needed to try increase and improve of gender development indicators in all cities with focus on poor areas same Delfan and Alighoodarz.

Development in social and economic foundations of welfare states after the World War II, resulted in more divers human lives, in the sense that nowadays every social individual and group can be differentiated from others due to variations in life places, cosmetics, clothing, arts and aesthetics, selection of entertainment and methods of spending leisure time (Gibbons, 2002 and Giddiness, 2004). Lifestyle is a point of intersection of construction and action, because it is, on the one hand, related to the power of actors in selection and, on the other hand, effects on the structure of this selection. Lifestyle is a result of all selections that everyone does for him or herself. It is most of the time self-evident, meaning that everyone introduces themselves to the world by their lifestyle and it provides young individuals with an opportunity to make transactions with social structure and conform to this structure or make changes in it. Accordingly, the reality of concurrent experiences of freedom and social limitations has become properly manifest in the notion of lifestyle (Zokaiei, 2007, p 102). The situation of lifestyle in Iran is an indication of evolution and change, as if lifestyle is a promise of social modernization. Diversity of lifestyles is an evolution in collective unconsciousness. Meanwhile, elements of religion has a main role in selecting lifestyles. Religion puts people in a situation to not only compare their lifestyle with others, but also to control their consuming culture and lifestyle (Bakak, 2002, p 177). Although the effect of religion on lifestyle is changeable in various social fields, it has sociological value. This has been observed in countries where religion is weak within the public sphere. With a wide spectrum of metaphysical and moral values as well as a set of traditional behaviors, religion can play a constructive role in making and changing lifestyle. One of the prevalent arguments in the field of sociology of religion is to address secularization and its expressions within society in contemporary world. “Carol Dibbler” studied secularization in three different levels of religion, individual and social. In his opinion, at religious level, secularization includes intra-religious transformation that lead to more individual mundane. At individual level, it decreases religious inclusion and undertaking and at social level it leads to separation of social structures and function of social institutions (Shojaieizand, 2001, p 144). Insufficient and improper patterns of development in a society such as Iran (Shojaieizand, 2006, p 20) makes the issue of secularization even more complicated. The present article is a brief introduction to the issue of secularism As it is expressed in the lifestyles of the youth. This is a survey research. Method of gathering data is questionnaire, with Likert Spectrum as its measurement base. Statistical population of the study includes all young residents of Isfahan whose total number was 551653 in the year 2006.The method of sampling was “Quota sampling”, which was based on municipal areas of Isfahan and age of participants (between 15 and 29 years old). Isfahan Municipality has divided the city into 14 districts. We distributed the questionnaires according to the percentage of young residents in each district proportionally. Moreover, each area was divided into north, south, west, east and central sectors and determining streets and alleys. According to Cochran Formula, sample size was calculated to be 385.Discussion of Results & Main focus of sociologists of religion is on religion and its function in human society. Religion helps increase collective agreement about content of social requirements and therefore provide values that are useful for putting perspective of society's members into certain pathways and supports requirements of social solidarity. In this role, religion helps create systems of social values that are contiguous and integrated. Durkheim states that common religious beliefs and accompanying customs have such important role that any society needs a common religion. He claims that the reason of most social disorganizations in modern societies is undermining of the belief system and following only individual and private interests. The results of the study indicate that at personal and social levels our society is full of holy religious symbols, i.e. religious and legendary personalities like Imams. People respect these sacred figures. Therefore, religion is important for young people and religious experiences are valuable and thus religious beliefs are in a suitable level. So we cannot say that Iran goes towards a perfect secularization. In other words, at the level of religious symbol our society is not secular and is religiously orientated. Religion has been accepted as an instructional guide in daily life among people. In institutional view, however, people are independent from religious institutions, particularly political institutions. But in this level, secularization follows a slow trend. In Iran secularization means intellectualization, specialization, structural- functional differentiation, bureaucracy, and monotony of micro social systems. In this sense secularization is very important because all people, especially the youth are affected by modernization and rely on their personal deduction of religion. Generally, it can be said that Islamic revolution in 1979 and the subsequent establishment of the Islamic Republic System led governmental leaders to reconstruct cultural and political spheres on the basis of this revolution, in the hope of making a society based on Islamic morals.Since more than two decades ago, young citizens have been under internal and international pressures. On the one hand, they are exposed to local forces, programs of Islamic development and national identification with Islam. On the other hand, however, they are influenced by global forces and personal identification with other institutions. Although the efforts of officials is based on training of young citizens in accordance with Islamic values and norms, a considerable section of Iranian youth are in some areas of social life has another definition for acceptable norms and “good life”.

With increasing social activities of organizations and their role in development of societies, the studies about organization function are expanded in behavioral and social sciences. Many studies and researchers every year investigate job satisfaction as a crucial aspect of organizations around the world. This attention is rooted in the important role of human resources in organizational success and plans. This attitude leads to some evolutions in management, by focusing on participatory management, and on employee's motivations and behaviors. At this round, job satisfaction is a more important variable. Job satisfaction has entered in most of the studies about jobs and organizations, in the last decades and attracted researchers and employees alike. But other variables should be investigated along with job satisfaction. Participation in job and organizational decision making, is a more crucial variable for satisfaction at work. Participation and sense of participation, can affect employee's job satisfaction directly and indirectly. Although participation in job tasks and decisions has effects on job satisfaction, other consequences are also important. One of them is alienation. Participation in job and organization can promote sense of belonging and decrease alienation from self, others and organization. This study has investigated the relationship between job satisfaction and participation by considering the alienation as an intermediate variable. The study has been done in quantitative research approach by a survey method. Sample contained 300 employees in Fars Electronic Corporation, who were collected by random sampling method. This corporation located at Fars province in south- east of Iran and give services of electricity in Fars and Booshehr provinces. Research data collected with a questionnaire designed by researchers and filled out by employees in the two provinces. Questionnaire contained several Likert scales that measured Job satisfaction with 3 dimensions (Satisfaction with management, colleagues, wage and job conditions), sense of participation and alienation. The scale's validity and reliability were obtained by a pilot study among employees. The data was analyzed by SPSS. Job satisfaction in this study is defined as positive attitude towards job and job-related experiences. By this definition, job satisfaction is composed of satisfaction with management, work conditions, wage and job itself. Alienation is defined as a sense of powerlessness and separation from job and organization. Finally, participation is defined as a sense of playing role in job and organizational decision-making process and affairs. Age, education, wage and life satisfaction are the other variables. According to the research model, 8 hypotheses extracted and tested as follows:Hypotheses:1-There is a significant relationship between age and job satisfaction2-There is a significant relationship between education and job satisfaction3-There is a significant relationship between wage and job satisfaction4-There is a significant relationship between participation and job satisfaction5-There is a significant relationship between life satisfaction and job satisfaction6-There is a significant relationship between alienation and job satisfaction7-There is a significant relationship between participation and job alienationDiscussion and The result of the study shows that there is a positive and significant relationship between age and job satisfaction and diverse relationship between age and alienation. According to this, older employees reported higher job satisfaction and lower alienation. Also years of working in the organization showed significant and positive relationship with job satisfaction. There is no significant relationship found between education and job satisfaction. But employee's wage showed positive and significant relationship with participation and job satisfaction. According to this, employees that get higher wage and material benefit from their organization, reported higher job satisfaction and lower alienation from organization. The hypotheses about relations between life satisfaction and sense of security with job satisfaction were also significant; there is a positive and significant relationship between job satisfaction and job security and life security. Finally it should be noted that the major hypothesis of this study was approved: there is a positive relationship between participation and job satisfaction. Also a negative relationship exists between alienation and job satisfaction. According to multivariate analysis, by multiple regression, among different variables that were investigated in this study, participation is the most important variable in impacting job satisfaction. According to path analysis, participation to job has a 63 percent effective value in the model.Participation, as is focused in some theories, has direct and indirect effects on employee's attitudes and behaviors. it can promote a sense of belonging in employees and increase their attachment to organization. Also it can be considered as a learning force in organizations to better job performance.

Today's adolescents have a great influence on the family purchasing behavior. Adolescent's critical role is based on the four pillars: 1) they have more money for purchasing, 2) they are potential consumers in the future, 3) adolescents influence family purchasing decisions (Hawkins, 2006), and 4) they receive more attention from their parents. According to the last statistics of IRAN general census in 2006, adolescents (aged 15-19) composed %38.12. of the total population. So understanding the purchasing behavior of this population category is very critical to marketing managers. On the other hand, family communication patterns impact adolescent's attitudes and behavior. Based on investigation of the current literature, it is clear that in the three-step consumer behavior process, that is, pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase, the first step has not been studied adequately before. In this research, we try to study the impact of family communication patterns on the adolescent's pre-purchase decision-making process. McLeod & Chafee (1972) provided a typology for parent-child communication schema. Their typology based on two types of parent-child communication: socially oriented which care about complying social norms and concept oriented which concerns persuading the children to convey their viewpoints and attitudes freely regardless of the norms. In 1981, Moore and Moschis categorized parent-child communication patterns, based on McLeod & Chafee's typology, to four different pattern types. Their four-dimensional typology has two axes from high to low. The first axis is socially oriented communication and the second is concept oriented communication. So we have a 2*2 cells matrix. Low concept with social orientation shows a laissez faire pattern. Low concept orientation with high social orientation shows a protective schema. In low social orientation with high concept orientation, a pluralistic pattern emerges. If social and concept orientations are high simultaneously, a consensual schema emerges. According to the literature review we formulate 12 hypotheses as below:H1: Adolescent's proactive problem recognition is higher in families with high concept orientation than families with lower concept orientation.H2: Adolescent's in families with high concept orientation use internal source of information more than families with lower concept orientation.H3: Adolescent's in families with high concept orientation use their parents as source of information more than families with lower concept orientation.H4: Adolescent's in families with high concept orientation use their friends and classmates as sources of information more than families with lower concept orientation.H5: Adolescent's in families with high concept orientation use business advertisements as source of information more than families with lower concept orientation.H6: volume of the external search of adolescent's in families with high concept orientation is greater than families with lower concept orientation.H7: Adolescent's in families with high concept orientation trust more to business advertisements than families with lower concept orientation.H8: Adolescent's in families with protective communication pattern pay attention to their parents preferences while evaluate options. H9: Adolescent's in families with protective communication pattern pay attention to their friends and classmates preferences while evaluate options.H10: Adolescent's in families with pluralistic communication pattern pay attention to product brand while evaluate options.H11: Adolescent's in families with consensual communication pattern pay attention to product price while evaluate options.H12: Adolescent's in families with protective communication pattern pay attention to product quality while evaluate options. Research population is composed of 16-18 years old students in non-governmental high schools of Tehran. Clustering sampling was used, and sample size is based on Cochran formula which was calculated as 290 students. 98 cases were from the North, 50 from center, 80 from the West, 39 from the East and 23 from the South of Tehran. A 32-items questionnaire including 29 specialized and 3 demographical questions was designed and applied. The data was gathered by self-reporting method. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for all the variables were at acceptable range to guarantee research reliability. The questionnaire was product specific. Clothing was chosen as object of the questionnaire design because of the status orientation and adolescents concerns. Each of the social and concept orientation latent variables were measured according to Moore and Moschis (1981) proposed scale including six items. External search volume was measured by three items; information gathering source by four items; trust to business advertising agencies by five items and option evaluation preferences by five items, all designed by the researchers. For testing hypothesis 1 through 7 we used independent samples t-test. For testing the other variables we applied one sample t-test.Discussion of Results & %54.8 of respondents were female and %45.2 were male. %45.2 of respondents were 16 years old, %31.7 were 17 and %23.1 were 18 years old. Based on Moore and Moshis's typology: %10.3 of respondents were living in families with protective communication pattern, %51 were living in families with pluralistic communication pattern, %24.1 were living in families with consensual communication pattern and %14.5 were living in families with laissez faire communication pattern. The results of testing hypotheses are shown in table 1. As these results indicate, all hypotheses except the sixth hypothesis, were confirmed (p<0.005).As research limitations, we should note that lack of domestic studies about the research subject does not allow us to compare the results of this study with other studies in Iran. According to research findings, we suggest that future studies consider the following points:•Performing this research in other cities of Iran, to consider sub-cultural differences• Studying other types of status oriented products such as: cell phone, watch and comparing the findings with no-status oriented product such as food.•An overall communication pattern between parent-child was studied here but further studies should be done about dyadic patterns, for example between father-boy, father-girl, mother-boy and mother-girl.•Studying the effect of parent-child communication patterns on the adolescent's decision-making style.