فصلنامه مطالعات و تحقیقات اجتماعی در ایران
سال یکم شماره 1 (بهار 1391)

To praise and worship the God is an essential part of Abrahamic religions (e.g., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam); but in Islam, this religious practice, in form of praying (salat) is a cornerstone of Muslims everyday life. In spite of religious importance of praying and the emphasize of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqhe) on it, in real sphere of Muslims life, especially in Iran as a Islamic country, cultural treatment and social confrontation toward praying seems to be a social problem. From the point of view, there are many questions that invite us to find the answers to them: what is the origin of socio-cultural of praying challenges and its mechanisms as well as its outcomes for religious life in contemporary Iran? In this article, we used a “sociological framework on religious life” as well as “secondary analysis method” for responding to the questions. The findings of the study show that there are “spiritual gap”, “social cleavages” and” social polarity” between “praying belief- behavior”, and also among the “social groups narrative on praying”. in this respect, the importance of new social spaces like mosque, family, school and media and its effects on praying, especially among youth generation is very vital.

This research probes the impact of instruments of globalization on the religious identity. This is why the theories that are used here include: the implant theory of George Gerbne, the relevant theory as developed by Teriandis, the theory of cultural coexistence, the theories relating to the American consumer culture, and the spread of western modernity. Today globalization through intensification of worldwide social relations has rapidly expanded communications, cultural coexistence and cultural interactions. As a consequence, cultural relativism in values has become a prevalent phenomenon. On the other hand with the increased interactions, a different phenomenon known as cultural imperialism is occurring through the process of which a culture overwhelms another culture. Today, American capitalist consumer culture along with its distinctive values, such as consumerism and pleasure-oriented influences, is penetrating diverse communities. Thus, globalization, with its apparent instruments (such as the Internet and other satellite-based information technologies), contribute to the emergence and promotion of relativistic values, pleasure-oriented activities, which all leads to larger amounts of consumption, hitherto unprecedented. The appearance of such relativistic values, we argue, affects the religious identity of the relatively-speaking, pristine and simpler people, who come in contact with technologically-dominant cultures who own the means for production and dissemination of information. The recipients are overwhelmed by such complex production processes, and merely become consumers. Here the case in point is the American culture. This is a survey-method research which uses the questionnaire for collecting data from its statistical society. The sampling technique is that of disproportionate stratified sampling, and the volume of the sample is 384 persons, a figure which was determined based on cochran formula. The most important finding of this research is that an increased use of the Internet and other satellite-based devices, tend to diminish religious identity of the users at a significant rate.

The aim of this article is to analyze the religious discourses represented in the movie “Ketabe Qanoon”. In this study Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory on polyphonic novel is used in which he believes that these novels do not have a univocal voice and instead reflect voices of different social strata. In order to analyze the movie, the methodology of Laclau and Mouffe is used.
Findings show that the movie has respectively a polyphonic discourse. The discourse of common sense religion is represented as dominating discourse which is being challenged by religious intellectualism and traditional Islamic discourses and asks the audience for judgment. In such judgment, the comparison is not between the religious intellectualism and traditional Islamic discourses, but between these discourses and the discourse of common sense religion, the practitioners of which are common people who have inherited Islam without having chosen it consciously. The aim of the movie is to dispute with the common sense religious discourse and in order to do the task, uses those analyzing concepts which are common among the other two discourses.

The main objective of this article is to present the results of a study on the advertising mechanisms through which cultural values are being represented in commercial ads played in Iranian national TV. In other words, the problematic of this paper resides in the point made clear in the Islamic Republic of Iran's constitutional codes, which emphasize the necessity of considering religious beliefs and values, plus symbols of Iran's culture and civilization when designing commercial ads. The question however, has always been whether or not such consideration is basically taking place. This is something that needs to be studied. Using linguistic structuralism we will consider commercial ads, here, as cultural texts and will analyze them in accordance with Roland Barthe's semiotic approach. In order to do that, we selected some 30 ads from amongst commercial ads which were broadcasted in channel 3 of Iranian national TV, periodically. Some of the findings indicate that although the commercial ads have used religious concepts and cultural symbols in their contents, such approach has not happened where religious values are concerned. Rather, religious values are used as instruments and are not inserted in the content of the ads. It should also be noted that both western values and Iranian cultural values had been represented in the ads. This finding points out to an important issue which is to say such trends are not unprecedented, since Iranian society is a so-called passing society towards modernity. Finally, it should be mentioned that we are witnessing the representation of Iranian cultural symbols along with national and patriotic values in the commercial ads; however, such representation takes the form of slogans and cliché.

This paper studies the extent of ethnic nationalism among the Turkmen students and investigates factors which led to the persistence of nationalistic attitude in their view. Andrew Heywood theories are employed to study the complexity and contradictory aspects of nationalism. Hence three types of nationalism are presented for further steps of study. We expect to have the ethnic nationalism in Golestan province being weakened, but it was not the case. Four variables are introduced to investigate the persistence of ethnic nationalism: recognition of ethnic identity, unequal distribution of economic, political and social opportunities, having the social demographic variables controlled. The results show significant relation of independent variables with independent ones. dependent variables are gender, marital status, recognition of ethnic identity, unequal distribution of economic, political and social opportunities.

Changes emerged in recent decades dramatically affect the formation and intensification of social problems among Iranian youth. Among the social problems we can mention the social anomy among the social members that reflects the chaos and anomy in the society. This article is allocated to social anomy among Tabriz Azad University students and effect of social capital on it. The research method was survey and the population was graduated students of Tabriz Azad University in 1387-1388. They were 18743 from which we choose 400 students as sample through stratified sampling method. After collecting data, in order to analyze the hypothesis, we used r Pierson tests, regression analysis and path analysis through SPSS software. Based on the findings, mean of social anomy among the students is more than average. The results of regression show that independent variables can explain 12% of changes in dependent variable. Among them, the social capitals indexes (institutional trust, social participation and social cohesion) affect the social anomy.

Political participation is considered to be one of the major indicators of development. Women as a part of the human capitals of every society can play a determinant role in running the country with their political participation. The purpose of the research is to examine some of the factors affecting the rate of political participation of women in the society. Research method in the investigation is survey and has been implemented among 1080 women between 18-64 years, living in East Azerbaijan Province. Variables that their impact on social and political participation of women has been evaluated include social and economic base, activity of individual, activity of parents and friends of individuals in association's tendency of individual and of parent's and friend's to political participation. The obtained results indicate that among these variables, the variable of individual’s activity in associations has had the most influence, and tendency of individual's parent to political participation has the least impact on the social and political participation of women.