A Study of Factors Affecting Inter-Ethnic Conflicts of Laks and Lors in Khorramabad City

Ethnic conflict is one of the most important social issues in the city of Khorramabad. This phenomenon in the tribal culture of this city is a power and defense index of socio-cultural status and family dignity, and is heavily influenced by traditional and tribal values. It seems that the variable of ethnic conflict is affected by certain conditions that are rooted in the social, cultural, economic and political structure of society.
Material & The purpose of the present research was to investigate factors affecting inter-ethnic conflicts between Lak and Lor ethnicities of Khorramabad city. The research method was survey. The statistical society consisted of 20-50-year-old men in Khorramabad city. The population of this society was about 173264 individuals, of whom, using Cochran formula, 383 subjects were selected for both ethnic groups. The theoretical framework of the study was based on the sociological theories of Gurr, Hechter, Agnew, and Peter Blau. The research sample was selected using multi-stage cluster sampling method proportional to pps volume. Researcher-made questionnaires that had content validity and were obtained with an emphasis on assessment of professors regarding the items were used to collect data. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software. The reliability of the study variables with more than 7/0 was measured by Cronbach's alpha.
Discussion of Results & The citizenship culture, relative deprivation, family differences, and lawlessness were independent variables in present research. The inter-ethnic conflict variable was the dependent variable, measured in intellectual, emotional, spoken, behavioral dimensions. The results of the T-test showed that ethnic conflict of Laks was more than those of the Lors. The highest mean was observed in emotional dimension and the lowest mean in spoken dimension, so that Laks had more intellectual and spoken conflicts than Lors. The behavioral lawlessness was observed among respondents more than subjective lawlessness. The relative deprivation was with the highest average in the social and economic dimension and the least deprivation in the political and cultural dimension. The most family strifes were considered in ethnic affiliation and tribal bias. The highest mean of the variable of citizenship culture was observed in the dimension of civic behavior, altruism and the least mean in the dimensions of trust, universalism and participation. The research results also indicated that there was significant relationship among the ethnic conflict as the dependent variable and age, ethnicity, civic culture, citizenship culture, lawlessness, relative deprivation, and family strifes. However, significant relationship was not observed between individual characteristics of marital status, employment status, education, income and ethnic strife. The results of one-way ANOVA showed that the age groups of 20-28 and 29-37 had the highest average of ethic conflict. Multivariate analysis also showed that lawlessness, relative deprivation, ethnicity, culture citizenship and family strifes have been able to explain 39.8 percent of variance of inter-ethnic conflict that among them, family strifes variable had the greatest impact on ethnic conflicts. The adjusted coefficient of determination and the multiple correlation coefficient were obtained 0.39 and 0.63, respectively. The results of the path analysis showed that the family differences with 0.38 of the total impact had the most impact on ethnic conflict, while other variables included lawlessness with 0.21, the variable of citizenship culture with 0. 19, relative deprivation variable with -0.08 percent, and ethnicity with -0.05 percent, had impact on ethnic conflict