ali janadleh

Rural women's microcredit funds are often considered as one of the important mechanisms for empowerment. In this study, it has been tried to identify and discuss the empowering dimensions and challenges of these funds based on the experience of women benefiting from these credits, as well as their proposed solutions to reduce or adjust the challenging funds of these activities. Based on this, after the participatory observation of the studied field, in-depth interviews were conducted with ten rural women. The women studied in this research had at least two and at most 5 years of membership in their village fund. The data obtained from these interviews were analyzed by maxqda software and with thematic analysis technique under the three main categories of empowering dimensions, challenges and solutions. The themes obtained in the empowering dimensions section refer to the ability to attract investors, increase bargaining power, increase social capital, the extent of communication network and elimination of middlemen .The findings of the challenges section were also identified under the two subheadings of individual and structural challenges, and finally, were proposed solutions such as creativity-oriented ability, the need to improve skills, determining the limits of government intervention, prioritizing production tools and paying attention to comparative advantage to improve the performance of the microcredit fund rural women.

 Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is one of the chronic illness that, due to its multiple and stable physical and mental dimensions, has major and continuous consequences on a wide range of aspects of the individual and social life of the patient. This illness has a female face based on its widespread prevalence among women and also the specific effects it has on women. Nevertheless, in domestic studies, the experience of women with this illness has been less considered, and the few studies that have been conducted are often based on a clinical-medical and quantitative approach. Accordingly, in this article, an attempt is made to study the experience of women with Multiple sclerosis in the social context of Iranian society. According to the main goal of this study, a feminist phenomenological approach has been adopted. Semi-structured interview was conducted with 25 women suffering from this illness who were selected using the purposeful sampling method and Criterion sampling strategy and the interviews were analyzed based on the procedure suggested by Moustakas.  Based on the narratives expressed in the interviews, the studied women's experience of Multiple sclerosis illness was formulated in the themes of living in suspension, shame of powerlessness, sexual inactivity, maternity risk and spousal apprehension. "Life in suspense" means that the women participating in this study, in describing and expressing their experience of MS illness, have mentioned the sense of uncertainty and not having a clear and reliable image of the future. "Shame of powerlessness" refers to the fact that the fatigue and disability caused by MS goes beyond the physical dimension, and women with MS feel a kind of shame due to their inability to perform daily activities. "Sexual inactivity" indicates that uncertainty and disability in MS affect the patient's most private activities, especially sexual performance, in such a way that it leads to a change in the research participants' self-perception and endangering personal relationships with their wives. The forth theme is “Risky motherhood”. In such a situation, "motherhood" in women with MS becomes a "risky" issue for both the patient and the child at various fetal stages and thereafter in terms of meeting the child's care needs. Finally, the theme of "marriage anxiety" that refers to research participant concerns about the continuity of married life, worry about the husband's lack of understanding of the patient's situation and etc. Such conditions make marriage and playing the role of a wife a problematic situation for women with MS.  According to the extracted themes, the experience of female participants in this research was conceptualized under the main theme of "identity anxiety" that refers to the experience of anxiety and worry about unfulfilled gender identity. This experience and understanding of MS, is a result of the intersection of the experience of chronic illness with gender, the body, and the social context in which a woman's identity is closely tied to pre-defined expectations and roles such as sexual attractiveness, marriage, homemaking, wifehood, motherhood, etc.

The present article aims to trace the understanding of Iran's collective identity in historical reference to the rationality of schools. The theoretical guide of the research is derived from the conceptual apparatus of Michel Foucault, and the methodological logic of the research is through the genealogical approach and Foucauldian discourse analysis. The findings of the study indicate that "historical events" and "multiple developments" during the "confrontation" at the beginning of the confrontation with the civilization of the West made Iran susceptible to multiple situations. Modern education, on the one hand, arose such a desire from within the society that here education is mainly focused on progress in the socio-economic fields and does not have a relation with the collective identity. On the other hand, the structural encounter with the Western world, the mainly military necessity of the government, and the health crisis led to the understanding and "technical rationality" of knowledge. The rationality that later at the end of the century, with the rebellion of the "progressive discourse" from its initial principles and the problematization of collective identity, put modern education at the service of "the impossibility of open collective identity."

Although chronic illnesses have a medical-biological origin, their long-term effects on the body and the functional disorders caused by these effects have dimensions beyond a biological phenomenon. They affect various aspects of the individual's life and the social life of those around them. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is one such chronic illness that, due to its diverse and enduring physical and mental dimensions, has significant and continuous consequences on various aspects of the patient's personal and social life. The increasing incidence of MS among women in recent decades, along with a higher incidence rate among women compared to men, has given this illness a feminine face.
This article, adopting a feminist phenomenological approach within the sociology of chronic illness, considers the experience of women participating in MS research as a specific female experience resulting from the intersection of this illness with gender, body, and social context.
Based on the interviews, five main themes—"living in suspense," "powerlessness," "shame," "sexual inactivity," and "the risk of maternity and spousal apprehension"—were extracted. According to these themes, the experience of women with MS is conceptualized as "Identity anxiety." "Identity anxiety" refers to the experience and feeling of worry caused by the unrealized gender identity of these women.

In theories of ethnic identity, belonging to an ethnicity varies with respect to ethnic policies, economic conditions, the extent of social system closure, etc., which may lose its role and importance in one period and become the dominant identity in another. The goal of this article is to evaluate the of ethnic identity in the city of Ahvaz from the second Pahlavi era to the Islamic Republic period. The research data were obtained based on the life history technique and through semi-structured qualitative interviews to identify and understand the mentality of people whose lived experience was formed in Ahvaz. To analyze the interviews, the matic content analysis method was used, through which ten primary themes and three central themes were identified. The central themes in the second Pahlavi period is "Ethnic Identity in the Path of Integration", in the period of the revolution until the end of the war is "Ethnic Identity in the path of Differentiation". The results show that compared to the past periods, the Bakhtiari and Arab people in Ahvaz have a greater tendency to identification based on ethnicity, and ethnic identity has become a strong and effective identity in the urban society of Ahvaz.

Ethnic identity is a fluid phenomenon that, due to social developments, experiences different situations. Ahvaz in the second Pahlavi period, for numerous reasons, including oil reconnaissance, changed its socio-cultural structure. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to answer the question of what ethnic identity was in this historical period? In other words, was the ethnic identity of the Bakhtiari and Arab peoples strengthened or weakened in the second Pahlavi period? To answer these questions, it used a semi-structured qualitative interview technique with those who had lived in the city during the second Pahlavi period. Research data has been analyzed through the Thematic analysis method, and has extracted the four primary themes of the growth of inter-ethnic interactions, the weakening of ethnic culture, ethnic ignorance, the identity unification policy of the Pahlavi government, and a central theme entitled ethnic identity on the path to integration. The results show that ethnic identity had weakened in that historical period and new identities had emerged in society

The Western family has undergone serious changes since the 1950s, which are now known as the "second demographic transition." One of the most important explanations for these changes is the theory of “ideational shift” by Lesthaeghe and others that emphasizes the changes from materialist values to post materialist values as the main factor in what is considered “less family” and the continuation of these trends with the expansion of this set of values. But recent evidence shows that in Nordic Europe, which is in the vanguard of embracing post-materialist values, the "less family" has stalled and even reversed. But recent evidence shows that in Nordic Europe, which are in the vanguard of embracing post-materialist values, the "less family" has stalled and even reversed. Based on this evidence, alternative explanations such as "Gender Revolution" and "gender-egalitarian equilibrium" are presented with emphasis on structural and institutional conditions. Secondary analysis of the data of the fifth wave of the "Study of European Values" shows that the existing trends are more in line with these new theories. According to studies, the main reason for the change in trends in Northern Europe is the adaptation of family relationships and public policies to changing gender roles and the orientation of social policies to support the family and its adaptation to new structural and economic conditions. Policies referred to in this article as "Family Supportive-Adaptive Policies".

In the process of establishing the Safavid government, a Sufi and spiritual tariqa, relying on the power of its followers, played a political and worldly role. The main question of this study is that on what basis and during what process Shah Ismail—as the perfect Sheikh of the Safavid tariqa—was able to mobilize his followers in several tribes to fight against other claimants of power, to overcome them, and to move toward establishing the government? Applying political theories of Ibn Khaldun about the development of governments, the present descriptive-analytical study thus seeks to answer this question. The findings show that Shah Ismail, using Sufi walayah, provided the means for the affinity of tribal and religious bonds within each tribe, and religious bonds between all tribes. He was accordingly able to create unity and solidarity among various tribes which were under his command, and to mobilize resources to fight against other claimants of power and finally, by using the aggregated power of these tribes which was the outcome of affinity of the ethnic and religious ties, he managed to defeat his enemies and succeed in establishing the long-lasting, powerful, and central government of Safavids.

The phenomenon of wet dust in Khuzestan province in February 2016 affected the provincechr('39')s electricity network and caused a widespread blackout. Following the power outage, other infrastructure in the province also suffered, the blackout crisis stimulated widespread social reactions. Accordingly, in this article, using the mixed method methodology, the dimensions and social consequences of the disaster are identified and analyzed. The results of qualitative section analysis showed that three categories of "disaster characteristics", "social contexts of the province" and" disaster readiness and management" have had an impact on "perception of the disaster". In addition, the social consequences of the disaster, such as "increased tendency to migrate from Khuzestan province" can be interpreted in direct connection with the perception of the disaster. The results of the quantitative part also confirmed the interpretations obtained in the qualitative part. However, the key finding of the article was that there was a wide perception gap between officials and different groups of people in Khuzestan regarding the different dimensions of the disaster. This makes it possible to understand the social reactions after the disaster. In the final part of the article, emphasizing the importance of social studies in the planning and policies of the Ministry of Energy and focusing on the Khuzestan disaster, suggestions are presented to promote social resilience in Khuzestan province.

This article, while approving the ability of polling to find out public opinion, attempted to examine the areas of “ineffectiveness of polling” at three levels of citizens, polling institutes, and officials. The main idea of the paper is that "ineffectiveness of polling" is the result of the constructing various factors that each of them are trying to promote, rather than based on the actual results of the polls. In polling institutes, some individuals and institutions attribute their failure to the analysis of polls whereas it is due to weak sociological vision and lack of commitment to scientific and organizational standards. In organizations that use poll results, some executives, who realize their power and benefits by ignoring people's voices, try to reduce the validity, importance, and impact of surveys by appealing to the ideology of professionalism and unprofessionalizing poll findings. In other words, some individuals and groups, with different motivations, have an interest in promoting the "idea of ineffectiveness of polling " in different domains, and are trying to make this point by reducing the "public credibility" of polls to "scientific credibility", and doubting the scientific credibility of the polls.

The disproportion between women’s presence in managerial levels and gender distribution of population as well as education have been an underlying basis to some studies regarding the examination of women’s barriers to accessing managerial levels. By using Cromie’s framework, in this study, posed theories on barriers to women’s job promotion have been classified into two categories: Internal and external barriers, and consequently, the domestic empiricial studies conducted in this field have been explored based on that framework from 2006 to 2016. Broadly speaking, theories related to internal barriers have sought the barriers to women’s access to managerial positions in relation to their role requirements and job involvements. In contrast, theories concerning about external barriers accentuate such attitudinal factors as gender stereotypes and structural factors as glass ceiling and gender discrimination. Utilizing meta-analysis, in this article, we have chosen our reviewed studies based on systematic search through 4 domestic scientific databases. The results of 20 mata-analyzed studies indicate that the findings of these studies, by and large, confirm the external barriers. Moreover, in some cases, there is a meaningful difference between women and men in relation to their preference regarding internal or external barriers impacting on women’s access to managerial positions.

The increasing in the use of new media has attracted scholars’ attention to the relationship between those technologies and variant aspects of everyday life and a great number of contradictory perspectives have been postulated regarding implications of new media technologies in relation to families. In our society, the growing use of modern media has also led to significant studies of the impact of these media on families. In this study, we formulate diverse views on the effects of new media on families grounded in three approaches, namely pathological, positive effects and the complexity of effects approach, and consequently, published articles during last decade (2006-2016) were investigated. By utilizing meta-analysis as research method, the articles were scrutinized from various aspects such as theoretical approaches, methodology, research variables and findings. The findings indicated that those articles were mostly focused on pathological approach, and new media was represented as a harmful media. What is more, the complexity of new media effects, the role of variables and mediator factors as well as the role of families in acceptance or rejection of media, and controlling their effects have been overlooked. In this way, a passive image of family’s exposure to such media has been revealed. Ultimately, some suggestions on how to apply substantive theories, specifically in the field of family, mixed methods and longitudinal studies were offered. Moreover, paying serious attention to the influence mechanisms and mediator variables was accentuated in order to grasp the mutual relationship between new media and divergent facets of family.

In most socio-historical studies, the gap between the state and the nation has been introduced as a historical and inherent feature of the traditional Iranian society. This means that the state's lack of external legitimacy, as well as the lack of procedures that determine the rights and duties of the state and society, have led to the alienation of social forces and the state of each other, and the historical gap between state and society. Hence the only relationship between these two was the exercise of unilateral domination by the state over society and obedience and subordination of society to the state. Referring to the historical institutionalism approach and using Reactive sequences analysis, this article provides an alternative narrative of the relation between state and nation. In this narrative, on the contrary, to the theory of the historical gap between the state and the nation, the mutual needs of the state and social forces led to a specific institutional configuration in the Iranian society, that was based on a complex network of interactions between the four main institutions of central government, the clergy, tribes and the market, resulting in relatively stable institutional balance between these institutions. This institutional configuration was rooted in a series of Reactive sequences, which brought about the formation of the Safavid government based on numerous tribal and ideological foundations.

The development of the Internet as a modern communication technology has raised new, important and different issues regarding the relation between this technology and the public sphere. In this paper, based on Habermaus’s theory, we have proposed four fundamental questions about the possibility and impossibility of development of the public sphere in the cyberspace in order to prepare a systematic review of the proposed theories. Based on the results of the study, it is possible to distinguish three different views toward the development of virtual public sphere: possibility, impossibility, and conditional nature of the formation of the virtual public sphere. The resultant of these three views is that despite the capacity of the cyberspace for the development of virtual public sphere, there are still important challenges such as the digital divide, polarization, cyberspace fragmentation, anonymity, and loosening of the real social ties. In addition, closer study of the relation between cyberspace and public sphere requires us to avoid technological determinism, and consider the institutional and social contexts and perform comparative studies on different social and institutional contexts