Role of Jihadi Role-Models in Deepening the Identity Roots of the Youth

Preliminary studies show that there are certain identity developments among the youth of the Islamic Revolution, some of which are not assessed positively. Since historical, cultural and social factors leave a considerable impact on the identification of the youth, and given the weaknesses in offering a jihadi role-model, the present paper is an attempt to study the impacts of such patterns on the identification of the youth. In the first place, after conducting 80 interviews with the key figures of the Construction Jihad, who were active during the war, the combat-engineering creativities of the Construction Jihad of the said period were extracted. In the next step, 110 students were asked to offer their evaluation of the Construction Jihad. Then, about 200 images of the combat-engineering creative achievements of the Construction Jihad were presented to the students and they were asked again to offer their evaluation of the Construction Jihad members. Thematic analysis conducted in order to compare the group with himself, shows that the awareness of the youth of the achievements of Construction Jihad members had considerable impacts on the process of their identification. In the next step, by converting the garnered qualitative data to quantitative ones, the significant differences of the results were specified. Hence, it seems that through extracting different jihadi role-models and their palpable and tangible presentation to the youth, it is possible to leave a positive impact on their identity development.