An Investigation of Religious and National Identity of Girl and Boy High School Students with an Emphasis on their Familie's Socio-Economic Status (A Case Study in Districts 11 and 2 of Tehran)

The purpose of the present article is to investigate the religious and national identity of adolescents and the youth considering their significant role in the future of the country. In fact, in this study different dimensions of the national and religious identity of the youth have been examined with regard to familie's socio-economic status, parent's career, and the impact of the media: In the present survey, which is based on the theory of symbolic interactionism as well as the impact of information society on identity, stratified-random sampling was utilized. The instrumentation consisted of a questionnaire which was administered to 350 boy and girl high school students in districts 11 and 2 of Tehran. It is worth mentioning that districts 11 and 2 were respectively considered to be representative of districts in which families with low and high socio-economic status reside. The results of the study revealed that girl's religious identity is stronger than that of boys. In addition, the religious identity of students with low socioeconomic background is higher than that of those with high socio-economic background. Taking national identity into account, no significant difference was observed between girls and boys as well as students with high and low socioeconomic status and it can be concluded that all students had strong national identity. Students who used computer and the internet for useful objectives (research) significantly had higher religious and national identity. On the other hand, the individuals who used the virtual space for a long period of time and for other purposes had low religious and national identity. And finally, girls were influenced by the media more than boys.