The mirage of theses defense sessions A reflection on Iran''''s academic culture through defense meetings

Thesis presentation meetings are an important part of the academic system and the processes of educating students and new generations of academics. These meetings are, in a sense, part of the rituals that the new generation of academics through transitions claim to achieve a relative maturity in scientific understanding and insight. What we consider in this article is the quality of these meetings and the processes that make up its content. From this perspective, I have attempted, based on my own experience of defense meetings during the last eight years, as well as conversations with my colleagues, to look at dissertation defens meetings in master and doctoral degrees in social sciences and art research, and in specific cases in the fields of urban planning and architecture. The findings show that these sessions are more than just a mechanism for socializing students in terms of social relationships and status among college professors, rather than being rituals for internalizing students'' scientific insights. It is in this context that each of the main actors, namely tutors, counselors, referees, and students, strives to have the least academic impact and the highest degree of prestige of social capital for their future. Therefore, in the light of favorable norms of science and scientific communities, it can be said that defense meetings are more like a scientific mirage than a serious transition ritual for the education of a new generation of scholars and researchers.