نشریه مطالعات جامعه شناختی
پیاپی 44 (بهار و تابستان 1393)

Focusing on the representation of the Kurds in the western travel writings, the present article attempts to identify the rhetorical devices deployed in these texts to textual construction of cultural differences. Our major questions are: "through what rhetorical devices Kurds have been represented and constructed in western travel writing?" and "are these representations consistent"? The rhetorical devices used in these travel texts are numerous and this paper just concentrates on one of these techniques, namely rhetorical trope of aestheticization. We want to know "how many forms does the rhetorical trope of aestheticization take in different periods?" and "has this trope been continued to be used in the later period texts?" Theoretical framework of this study has been built upon insights derivedfrom postcolonial theorists including Said, Spurr, Pratt, and Hall. This approach has served as a basis for several studies aimed at reading cross-cultural encounters. Considering our sample texts are characterized as narrative texts we have adopted a rhetorical analysis. We have divided travel texts into two groups: colonial period texts and postcolonial period ones. Findings indicate that the trope of aestheticization has been widely used and take different forms in the travel texts of both periods. So we witness that this trope is continued to be used in the later period. Finally, we conclude that the discourse of empire is still reproduced in travel texts of the later postcolonial period.6

This essay is an attempt to explore “success discourse” in educational system in Iran. The consequence of “success discourse” is a phenomenon I have called “Education Industry” following Theodore Adorno’s “Cultural Industry. In particular, I aim to address two questions related to the above mentioned “success discourse”. First, how success can be evaluated, and second, how social goals can be achieved based on the success. To provide an answer to these questions I have conducted a study on educational process. The results indicate that the mentioned “success discourse” is widespread among schools educational management and some fundamental problems are emerged accordingly. Firstly, major attention to natural sciences like mathematics, chemistry and the like, and minor attention to human sciences has resulted in the number of physicians and engineers outnumber humanities and art thinkers. Secondly, the arts and entertainment are deleted or neglected by the school program managers. Thirdly, as a result of this discourse the students look to result more than the learning as a process. Thus they don’t learn how, just learn what. Their experiences cannot be rich and they don’t understand the issues in their holistic form. In this condition, some profit-driven centers, in the name of educational activities, try to replace the national education system, while they don’t add much value to the learning process.

This article seeks to study the processes of informal settlement emergence in Kermanshah. The theoretical framework of article is based on De Certeau s ideas. He emphasis on everyday action in constructing the urban spaces. He believes each individual is creative and meaning maker. The needed data were gathered through interview, observation and analysis of document. Findings reveal that rural migration from countryside to Kermanshah has happened on the force of 'land reform agrarian revolution". It added 10 thousand people an average annually. The city economically could not absorb all of them. Their state of being poor, illiterate and unskilled incompetency caused them not to be absorbed into the society. Urban planning excluded the emigrants by means of 'Master Plan' practically some strategies such as high meters land. The excluded people who did not have any other choice, had decided to pursue 'other path' and struggling to survival. They have applied several tactics such as forcible possession unutilized lands in outlying regions, re divided land and informal branching of water and power to provide home informally. The outcome of this effortful attempt was the emergence of informal settlements such as Jafar-abad, Shater-abad, Dolat-abad and Koli-abad in Krmanshah.

Ethics in education, as a part of professional academic ethics, consist of a set of professional affirmative and negative rules and regulations agreed upon by the scientific community. Accordingly, the actors in the field of education are required to comply with ethical rules and avoid unethical practices in the processes of science education. Faculty members, students and managers are the main groups of actors in the educational space who, proportional to their roles and the expectations of them, have to abide by professional ethics and academic ethical codes. Since complying with scientific ethics in the space of academic education has been challenging, the present research deals with the types of nonconformity to the norms relevant to the roles of the major actors (professors, students and managers) in the space of social science education in Iran. Using a qualitative content analysis technique, the authors conducted a semi-structured interview to gather information about the experiences of PhD students of social sciences at the University of Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran University, Shahid Beheshti University, Alzahra University and Tarbiat Modares University. The authors aim to identify different types of violation of professional ethical norms in the space of social science education in Iran, considering the status and role of the main actors in this field. The results show that the norms of scientific ethics in social science education are extensively violated. This violation include all important actors, namely professors, students and managers. It is also, affected by the structure of education at university, faculty and department levels, including rules, regulations and the procedures of the educational organization. It seems that adopting a mutual approach to identifying the types of nonconformity to scientific ethics at two levels of actor and structure and avoiding one-sidedness in examining this issue will result in an enlightened understanding of the state of scientific ethics in the structure of higher education in Iran.

Social view of language and intensifying the role of society to form meaning is among the issues which unveil the importance of Wittgenstein's thoughts in social sciences and his philosophy. In his opinion, the nature of the language, that is being expanded in society, will determine how we, i.e. empirical subjects, encounter different matters and deal with them as social actors. In this paper, I will try to investigate some of the essential questions in philosophy of social sciences from the viewpoint of the later Wittgenstein. Is social reality or reality in general, based on language and, in other words, is it being structured and shaped by society? Is there any reality, apart from empirical subjects, independently? Basically, what are the criteria to distinguish "real" from "unreal"? These are the questions that I I aim to address in this paper. Since philosophy of the later Wittgenstein is clouded with various interpretations, in parts even contradictory explanations, I will continue to provide answers to these questions with regard to the views of Ilham Dilman, one of the greatest interpreters of Wittgenstein.

The purpose of this paper is testing Merton’s Anomie theory (1968). It is focused on some key concepts in Merton’s anomie theory, which researchers pay less attention to them. We have extracted eight hypotheses from Anomie theory and attempted to test among a sample of male adolescences in Ahvaz South of Iran. We surveyed a sample of 480 male students in nine high schools to gather needed data using a self-report questionnaire. The questionnaire measured objective and subjective socioeconomic status, relative deprivation, and aspirations, perceived opportunities, the gap between aspirations and perceived opportunities and finally feeling of anomie. Results show that socioeconomic status- in both dimensions- is significantly correlated with feeling of anomie, but its effect in regression equation on feeling of anomie is insignificant. Our findings suggest that SES has an indirect effect via aspiration-opportunity gap and relative deprivation on feeling of anomie. The effect of relative deprivation is significant which is affected by aspiration-opportunity gap. Step by step regression shows that aspiration-opportunity gap, perceived opportunity and relative deprivation have greatest effect on feeling of anomie, respectively. The effect of other variables seems unimportant. Our theoretical model is tested by standardized regression coefficient (path analysis). Also, we found significant relationships between each gaps per aspiration and perceived opportunity. This is the first comprehensive study to test Merton’s Anomie theory in Iran. According to the logic of Merton’s theory, aspiration-opportunity gaps can be extended beyond the purely economic dimensions.

This paper investigates the impact of Information Technology on the staff’s working life of industrial organizations and in particular relies on an empirical study we conducted in Pars Khodro, an automobile manufacturer company in Iran. Methodologically, this study is a qualitative approach combining biographical-narrative interviews with the staff of Pars Khodro Company, documentation and personal observations. Our results indicate that Information Technology holds different consequences; some of them have not primarily been of any concern to manufacturers and executives. The affect of Information Technology is quite complicated. It is a combination of an evolution in facilities and material structures, changing relationships, hierarchies, and meanings for those who are affected. Here, the impacts of Information Technology are described by four models in the areas of action detachment and trust and risk, hierarchy and symbolic violence, competition and expertise, and finally acceptance of Information Technology. It is worth mentioning that these results show that Information Technology not only impact working environment, but also it changes working people’s personal lives.

The aim of current article is to read the January 2011 revolution in Egypt as a whole text, applying an anthropological point of view. In particular, here my theoretical framework is a mixture of Weber’s and Gaddamer’s theories. Regarding methodological orientation, I have used an interpretative anthropological perspective, especially Clifford Geertz’s widely applied concepts and investigative procedures, namely thin description and dick description. Referring to thin description of Egyptian revolution, I read both transnational and national contexts of revolution and in dick description, I concentrated on the main thinking trends and thinkers as well as current discourse of Egyptian society including Islamism and non Islamic thinking trends. I also tried to analyze the connection between thinking and actions in this revolution.