Gender Segregation and its Social Consequences (Case Study: Farhangian University of Kermanshah)

The notion of “gender segregation” in the universities has often been challenged with different concurring and opposing theories. The issue has been further highlighted in Farhangian University. Although all the qualifiers in this university, prior to and during admission process, have been cognizant of such gender segregation, some elicit resistive responses pursuant to admission and passing some semesters, and then they present their commentary on the relevant implications. The present research seeks to investigate the consequences to gender segregation form the students’ perspective. By applying a semi-standard interview and a purposive-qualitative procedure, an in-depth interview was performed on 33 students studying at least 5 semesters in the university, and the interview was terminated based on theoretical saturation. For data analysis, grounded theory was applied. The research findings were divided into 18 principal categories, and the category “dubiety (Tashkik, in Islamic Terminology) over gender segregation” was semantically reconstructed. The consequences of the dubiety were categorized in the two groups including consensus and inconsistent (i.e. contradictory) consequences. In the end, the research findings were presented in the form of a researcher-made model.