فصلنامه مطالعات و تحقیقات اجتماعی در ایران
سال نهم شماره 4 (زمستان 1399)

Starting with the 19th century‘s European expansion and colonization, the contact between Europe and the non-European world has been disproportional. As emerging from Bitterli’s typology (1976) of a cultural encounter, this contact can be captured by two inseparable dimensions: the socio-political and the cultural. In the past forty years, the intercultural aspect of colonialism has gained currency in scholarship. Bitterli claims that history of colonialism must reorient itself completely. By this, he means that it cannot be explained solely by the changes in power and interest and the resulting political, administrative, and economic change. Similarly, Mary Louis Pratt (1992) argues that the analysis of the cultural contacts between Europe and the other parts of the world, which has influenced the colonial power relations, has been omitted from the analysis of power, and particularly so in the case of analyses starting from the non-European side.

The present study is to explore the specificity of cultural boundary-drawing by Iranians traveling to Europe in the turn of the 20th century. The process of the cultural boundary-making and the boundary itself shall be observed and be described in its historical context. Travel writing, as a literary genre, and its practice by 19th and beginnings of the 20th century by Persians traveling to Europe can contribute to the understanding of how social actors construct groups as similar and different and how it shapes their understanding toward such groups.

In Iran’s Qajar period, travel activities increased greatly, cumulating into a kind of golden era of Persian travel literature. In the numerous Persian reports of Europe, produced in this era, we find examples illuminating the tension between the motivation of assimilation on one side and the resistance towards import of stranger’s perceptions on the other side. Since fear and fascination have always been the ambivalent tendency of Iranians towards foreign cultures. Especially the travel report of Ẓahīr-ad-dawleh (1900), who traveled as a companion of Mụẓaffar-ad-dīn-šāh to Europe at the turn of the 20th century, is going to reveal much of the turbulences in Iranian society before the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. Despite Ẓahīr-ad-dawleh’s high political status at the court of Mụẓaffar-ad-dīn-šāh, his narrative appears critical and far from self-censorship. In similar conditions, other persons in the court who had the equal position did not dare to speak, not only because of losing their high rank but also because of losing their lives. What is interesting about Ẓahīr-ad-dawleh’s report is the comparative perspective that he maintains in his observations of the modern European conditions on one hand and the societal situation in Iran on the other hand. At the same time, however, he remains sober about the prospects of a complete acculturation with the European culture.

it can be argued that the travel writings have a lot to say but not discussed before. Despite this report’s unique thematic and formal properties, this travel writing has been rarely studied before. Particularly for a Persian travelogue like that of Ẓahīr ad-Dawleh, which was configured in regard to a European Other and during the novel experience of alterity, it would be very helpful to examine empirical qualitative data analysis and way it had come to the process of boundary-drawing. This act is one of the first steps towards constructing something that we name it in the future “the Iranian identity” and the (re)construction of a common history.

In spite of diversity in definition, all forms of collective action have a common property: a group of people cooperating for a public good (Tomas, Louis, 2013). Because of the non-exclusive nature of public goods, the rational action is to free ride and don't contribute to the collective action. This is where the collective action problem arises. The collective action problems can vary according to the contextual state of where and when they are being studied. In this study, we tried to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms and conditions which lead to making collective action happen in Iran. There are some controversial judgements about collective action in Iran. This study aims to make a clearer idea about the issue, by conducting a field study research and analyze the neighborhood collective action as the analytical unit.   We used a multiple case studies method in our field survey of collective action. We used purposive sampling and theoretical sampling for finding our cases: “Ekbatan”, “Evin”, “Sharif residential complex” and “Rahahan residential complex”.  We suggest an empirical model of structures in two levels: The contextual conditions ("Social capital", "The neighborhood power structure" and "Initializer agent"), and the strategical conditions ("framing" and "mobilization"). This model represents different factors and concepts and the interactions among them, which make neighborhood collective action possible. The factors are derived from the field data of this study.  The interaction among the factors of our model leads to a situation where collective action can happen. The concepts forming the contextual conditions of collective action are "Social capital", "The neighborhood power structure" and "Initializer agent" . It is the interaction among these concepts that trigger the public good as the goal of collective action. At the Strategy level, "framing" and "mobilization" are at work that have a bilateral effect on each other. Framing brings legitimacy for the mobilizations' mechanisms, and in return, the mobilization provides the resources needed for resonating the framing of collective action. The chance of having a successful collective action is also affected by the way structural concepts of the contextual conditions interact with the strategies that agents employ. Social capital makes the mobilization more accessible and create trust. The ability to effectively interact with the neighborhood power institutions, can bring legitimacy, make the mobilization process easier, and reduce the overall cost of collective action. The initializer agent forms the primary framing of the collective action and mobilize the primary forces and resources needed. The interaction among these factors with the mutual effects and the possibilities and restraints that they have on each other, make the collective action possible. Understanding these factors and their restraining and contributary effects on collective action is the first step for agents who want to make any changes via the collective action. This usage will only arise from the interaction of social agents' will and the structural constraints.

State Welfare Organization has been appointed as responsible for managing street children since 2005 and delivering services to these children and their families through national Street Children Managing Plan. The Plan has four service delivery levels and the aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of short term residential centers (second level centers) in achieving its goals. These centers have the facilities to reside street children up to 21 days and to deliver medical, nutrition, financial, social work, psychological, legal and job training services to street children and their families. This research is a descriptive-analytical survey. The statistical population of the study is all street children registered in short term residential centers and their parents/caretakers in four provinces selected by State Welfare Organization (Tehran, Kordestan, Semnan, and Sistan & Baluchestan). Data were collected by two researcher-made questionnaires for children and families. The total sample size was 279 but finally 124 cases of the children and 98 cases of caregivers filled questionnaires and the data were analyzed by SPSS software. According to the main objectives of evaluation, the self-report questionnaire of children consisted of six parts: education, child safety and abuse; working situation; caregiving and guardianship; quality of life; and professional empowerment. The self-report questionnaire of families also consisted of job services, financial empowerment and social rehabilitation. Face validity of both the questionnaires were confirmed by 10 experts in social science and social work fields. According to the findings, 96.42% of participated children were boys and 83.87 of them were Iranian. There wasn’t any meaningful difference in the status of children education after the program implementation. The status of children working hours was changed meaningfully as 23% of them didn’t work anymore. Given the status of caregiving and guardianship, about 15% of the children were not under the guardianship of their incompetent parents anymore and instead grandparents and relatives have more share of the caregiving. There was a meaningful difference in the status of basic needs of children (physical, health, shelter, love and nurturing) but the difference wasn’t meaningful in need of leisure. According to the goal of improving the family capacities, only 20% of the families were empowered due to the scales. Overall, the Plan had a significant effect on working status and hours, guardianship, meeting basic needs and improving the quality of life of working children, but did not have a significant outcome on their education and secondary needs. Also children and their families believed that the services aiming empowerment weren’t enough and effective and only the financial supports could increase the working status and hours of the children and improve their education in some cases. Regarding the objective of improving education status of street children, it could be discussed that empowerment services and social rehabilitation of the families weren’t comprehensive and evidence-based and were limited to financial support. Also statelessness and having no identity cards weren’t addressed in the plan as the main obstacle of formal education. Improving the family capacities was among the main objectives of the plan, but the result of gaining this goal was not promising. According to the findings of this study, it can be stated that the national Street Children Managing Plan was not successful in achieving its goals, and the empowerment of children and families did not reached to an anticipated level. So, it is necessary for State Welfare Organization to expand evaluating programs to other aspect of the plan and also other collaborating organizations and NGOs should be involved to realize the comprehensive and universal picture of implementing national Street Children Managing Plan.

In this research, through identifying the components of what is called “Iranian Twitter”, we tried to identify and evaluate the patterns Iranian Twitter users are affected by the political attitudes of the Iranian Twitter Influencers.

In this study we decided to analyze the data on the communication networks between users and Influencers. The steps we took to answer the three questions of research were as follows: We identified the Iranian Twitter Influencers using snowball sampling. Then, by reviewing the pages of the influencers one by one, we recorded their characteristics in our list. Then, we collected the information about the communication network between the influencers, and used that as input for Gephi software. Finally, we calculated each group of users attributed to each political attitude, how much expose themselves to influencers with different political attitudes, on average.

two-fifths of Principality users are considered to be fanatic users. A fanatic user is a person who follows more than 70% of the influencers  and has the same political attitude. In fact, the fanatic user is one who is often exposed to one type of political attitude and is less inclined to be exposed to different opinions. Only 1% of transformationalist users were fanatic users. On average, 56% of the influencers followed by a reformist user with reformist attitudes. Also, transformationalist users are more likely to follow non-political influencers (44%) than to follow transformationalist influencers (33%). The complete isolation of separatists is evident in this table, as they have no share in the influencers followed by reformist, transformationalist, and principalist users, and only 1% of the them are followed by subversives supported the separation of Iran. Further, 64% of  influencers are also followed by principalist users tended to be principalist.

The results showed that although none of the political attitudes in Iranian Twitter have significant superiority to others, a significant proportion of users who favored a political attitude, displayed little tendency to be exposed to different political messages. Another important point is that online social networks should not necessarily be seen as a tool for organizing movements or revolutions. Influencers of online social networks affect attitudes of ordinary users by the contents that they publish constantly in long term. The continuous and daily influence of these new media in shaping the lifestyle, habits and attitudes of users is also important. If we do not understand the important role the online social networks could play in daily lives of users, we could not understand how they influence in political contexts.

Most of youth population and particularly young students prefer to have celibacy life style and remain single. Nowadays it has become widespread life style of most youths in Iran especially in educated and rich families. If, until now the financial and economic problems, education and employment has been considered the main obstacle of youth’s marriage or cause of their reluctance to marriage, but it seems that there are other problems in this choise that they prefer single life relative to married life. The purpose of the present research ply commentary approach and Emic view and among involved people to analyze the preferences of the young Iranian individuals to have celibacy life style via sociological analysis. 

The methodology of this study is qualitative analysis conducted by use of grounded theory (Grounded Theory). The desired sample was selected among single students of Science & Research Branch on Islamic Azad University of Tehran (boys >28 years-old & girls>25 years-old) and through purposeful sampling. To collect data, deep and Semi-Structured interviews were utilized. For analysis of data, the constant and 3 phases of comparative analysis methods, Straus & Corbin has been used by the authors.

The findings of research showed that major causes of the preferences are including social and cultural problems, past experiences and imperfect patterns as causal conditions and environmental, family pressures and economical & financial problems as grounding conditions as well as ignorance of opposite part lack of associates support and lack of necessary motives to marriage as intervention conditions in celibacy selection of youths. Finally, based on obtained data from statistical sample and extracted codes, the consequences of such life style has been explained as elimination and/or reduced perceived personal growth, indifference to marriage, double side approach on marriage, delay in marriage age, higher age of marriage and so on.

Since Iranian society in recent decades has experienced great changes in the cultural and social arena, which in turn has had a great impact on changing the views and thinking of individuals. This change of perspective begins with the individual and continues with the modeling of the core family lifestyle. What is perceived in the interviews with some participants is that urban youth have more choice of marriage time and living in the city due to low social connections between families and relatives and low involvement of large families (such as grandparents, uncles, cousins). In the decisions of the usually young nuclear family, less pressure is placed on marriage, or even the expansion of friendships with the opposite sex and job requirements in cities, has made the mandatory view of marriage in cities less colorful and less important than rural areas. Solving the problems of marriage requires a widespread cultural and public education. Encouraging young people and families to facilitate marriage and marital living, spreading the right culture of marriage and creating a space for marriage discourse in society can be effective in this regard. Finally, it should be said that in our country due to the lack of a organization in charge of family affairs and marriage and as a result of family confusion and bureaucracy in some related organizations and institutions, as well as to fulfill the tenth principle of the Constitution Islamic Republic of Iran to facilitate the formation of the family and also to create conditions for targeting the lifestyle of young people based on their circumstances intensified the situation among the youth.  Therefore, it seems necessary to have a strong and powerful institution or organization in the field of family to manage of young people.

Hamedan is one of the provinces of Iran with a full-fledged mirror of the diversity of Iranian society. On the other hand, like other provinces, it has undergone changes due to the experience of development programs. Hamedan is a combination of different ethnic groups of Persians, Lors, Turks and Kurds that today more than ever before are integrated into each other and are in daily interaction and communication with each other. In the context of such diversity, the issue of trust and social participation is of considerable importance.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between social trust and social participation in Hamadan province. This study is conducted by a quantitative method. The statistical population consists of all people aged over 15 years living in 9 cities of the province, which is 612449 people. A samples of 800 individuals have been selected for the analysis. The required data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire.

The results have indicated that, in general, the level of social trust is low with an average of 42.41% in the study population. Meanwhile, institutional trust is lower than other dimensions of trust with an average of 38.56. The level of social participation is also high with 89.61. Informal participation is lower than formal participation. The results of the hypothesis test have indicated that the variables of gender, income and education have no significant relationship with social trust and social participation. But the relationship between age and participation is significant and negative; that is, as people get older, participation decreases. Both the variables of trust and its dimensions (institutional, public and interpersonal trust) have a significant relationship with social participation. Regression results have also indicated that, in general, the research variables could predict 0.63% of changes in social participation.

In general, based on the findings, it can be said that social participation is a difficult task without improving the level of social trust in the cities of Hamadan province. Therefore, raising the level of social trust, especially institutional trust, is a necessity. The proper functioning of institutions, especially those that deal directly with the people, is crucial. Institutions such as banks, municipalities, law enforcement, the judiciary, etc. are decisive in this regard.

The historic revival of the political Islam late 1970s and the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran as an unprecedented form of government has attracted many international scholars for four decades. From the very beginning of this socio-political transition in Iran, the status of women and their rights and empowerment have been of high priority under an Islamic government. The Islamic Republic has become an enabling force to bring an exceptional opportunity for Iranian women to acknowledge their position in individual and social capacities. Simultaneously, the definition of womanhood and women’s social mission and role taking has changed a lot based on new Islamic cultural values and laws in the Islamic Republic. In parallel, some new and different interpretations came to surface in particular during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency and under the title of dynamic jurisprudence was giving way to Islamic feminism. Islamic feminists claim to re-interpret Quran and the Prophet’s Sunnah in terms of modern gender equality and women’s socio-political participation. However, “Islamic” and “feminism” sounds paradoxical to many critics, “Islamic feminism” is a named phenomenon and a theorized body of knowledge that got its climax in 1990s as it sounds to remain significant in the 21st century. The present study is an attempt to seize the focal discursive nodes of Islamic feminism regarding both academic and journalistic literature with acknowledging the fact that many of the current Islamic feminists are not even located in Iran as they produce and publish such knowledge in European and American universities. The present study, thus, addresses various academic and journalistic publications to unveil the focal nodes that constructs the discourse of Islamic feminism in Iran. It has covered a vast literature including 40 articles, book chapters and books in the Islamic feminism genre to unveil its discursive construction in Iran. It employs Laclau and Mouffe’s approach to critical discourse analysis: it finds the most frequent concepts that imply the re-reading of Islam in terms of gender equality and women’s rights and empowerment. The study indicates that Islamic feminism that has developed in response to the political Islam discursively focuses on four major themes, including a) criticizing the Islamic Republic for reductionism in women’s identity into the domestic and communal roles, b) emphasis on human dignity to achieve the legal equality, c) demand on halting gender-based discriminatory legislature, and finally, d) fostering women’s participation in civil society. To provide a compatible version of Islam with women’s modern needs and wishes is a dilemma with which many Muslim scholars and activists are faced. Islamic feminists in Iran challenge the pervasive narrative of womanhood post Revolution since they believe it has undermined women’s position as individuals and reinforced men’s power and control over women. Studies such as the present one paves the way for a vigorous dialogue between Islam and modernity in the field of gender. It draws the complex status of modern Muslim women in border thinking between Islam and modernity.

The present study, based on the resistance discourse of inverted Orientalism, seeks to provide an understanding of the indigenous conditions of Iranian society in relation to the rights of the child. The purpose of this study is to compare the rights of the child in six different areas: "1) Laws and regulations in Iran; 2) Internal policies in three areas of governance, government and bureaucracy; 3) Iranian civil society; 4) Policies of the international community (international); 5) The religion of Islam; 6) Policies of the Islamic world as the main areas of determining the nature of children's rights. This comparison is to identify and extract the advantages and strengths of children's rights in Islam over other areas of children's rights. The questions of the present study are "Similarities and general differences in the rights of the child in the six different areas of law and regulation in Iran; Internal policies in three areas of governance, government and bureaucracy; Iranian civil society; Policies of the international community (international); The religion of Islam; the policies of the Islamic world; and " the positive points and advantages of children's rights in Islam over other areas". 
By exploratory analysis, the six domestic and foreign areas that are the basis of the definition of children's rights in Iran are based on Iranian laws and regulations; Internal policies in three areas of governance, government and bureaucracy; Iranian civil society; Policies of the International Community (International); and The religion of Islam. According to the foundation, we have identified the policies of the Islamic world and then analyzed them with the method of qualitative content analysis.
Due to its traditional and Islamic conditions, Iranian society considers the child within the family and under the guardianship of parents or guardians to support the child with the priority of collective interests in the family and society. According to this principle, the child has the right to life in the family, even if it is not more than fertilization. The observance of this right is something beyond generation and beyond history, which includes previous generations. The child has the right to independence, non-colonialism and non-sanction in a larger or more structured community such as society.
Children of Islamic societies, including Iran, need the rights that are not considered by the central societies like the Convention on the Rights of the Child as the dominant global sources, as if the rights of the child presented in global sources, separate reading and miles. It is far from the social and cultural contexts of the surrounding communities (including Islamic and Iranian). This issue requires the attention and action of the surrounding communities in order to provide an "indigenous structure of child rights."

Religious identity has been one of the most important aspects of shaping the social identity of individuals and social groups in Iran, and such a major and fundamental force has historically played a role in social changes in Iran. Moreover, religious identity is not a closed and homogeneous whole and has a variety of dimensions and components. On the other hand, the media, especially cinema and television, are not always detached from their social and political space, so they represent the content of their message, influenced by the dominant socio-political discourses, in a special way, highlighting a number of dimensions and ignoring others. This study seeks to study how different religiosity dimensions of social classes are represented in post-revolutionary Iranian cinema. The dimensions of religiosity considered in the present study are derived from the Glock and Stark's model of religiosity, as well as the implications of the class is based on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of distinction in which, the composition and volume of various capitals are involved in the class formation. Finally, these two theoretical levels are analyzed in the context of Stuart Hall's constructivist approach to representation. Out of the dozens of movies in Iranian cinema, two levels of theoretical and typical sampling was conducted and finally two film in each decade that were theoretically more closely aligned with the research criteria were selected and analyzed. The films included: Pure Repentance (1983), Two Blind Eyes (1984), from Karkheh to Rhein (1991), Smell of Camphor, Scent of Jasmine (2000), A House Built on Water (2001), Book of Law (2008), Scandal (2012) and Sensitive Class (2013). These films have been examined by John Fisk's Critical Semiotics at three levels of "reality, representation, and ideology". Finally, the combination and integration of the first two levels is represented in the last level, i.e., ideology. Critical semiotics of films have also shown that the representation of the five dimensions of religiosity of each social class, influenced by the discourses of each decade, has undergone significant changes, including reduction in the religiosity dimensions of the lower class, especially emotional dimension, compared to the 1960s, the relative stability of the dimensions of middle-class religiosity from the 1970s onwards, and the growing emphasis on the ritual dimension of religiosity of the upper class in the last decade. Such changes and fluctuations in the representation system of cinema itself have been affected by changes in the discourses that govern each decade. The results of this study, on the other hand, confirmed that cinema, based on its representative nature, show the complex relations between the fundamental forces in Iranian society, namely religiosity and class relations, through the lens of cinema. It is important to note, however, that in comparison with literature of the study, which considers "religious cinema" to be stable in contrast to current trends in society, or without considering class formations, or impose single discourse on "Religious subjects", this study shows that despite the existence of specific political, social and economic discourses in each decade, such discourses do not affect the dimensions of religiosity of all classes in a similar and integrated way, moreover, representation of the dimensions of religiosity of different social classes have had significant fluctuations and changes.

by saying the word of interest, the first thing that comes to mind immediately is economic interest and this is while different fields of life have their own interests which are not necessarily economic interests. the present study uses the documentary method to investigate the diversity of levels and non-economic meanings of the concept of interest from the perspective of sociologists and intends to provide for researchers a conceptual tool for explaining social phenomena by emphasizing Bourdieu's understanding of interest. This study shows that Alexis De Tocqueville, Marx Weber, Gustav Ratzenhofer, Albion Small, Edward Alsworth Ross, George Simmel And James Coleman have used profit in its micro and individual form. However, there is a difference between these thinkers regarding the concept of interest and that of Tocqueville, Weber, Coleman and Simmel. The later have considered the concept of interest as a social element and have used it in the analysis of relations between people in society. But Ratzenhofer, Small, And Ross have a pre-social understanding of the concept of interest, and see it as an element that shapes society, not a factor through which relationships between individuals in society can be analyzed. The study also suggests that thinkers such as karl Marx, Arthur Bentley, And Pierre Bourdieu used interest collectively. However, with a deeper look at the empirical application of the theories of the above thinkers in relation to the concept of interest, it may be said that Marx's sociological view of the concept of interest in the form of class interests, although has a sociological burden and does not consider interest specific to the individual. It considers the economic meaning of interest for a group of people of the same class and in a way closes the way for thinking and reflecting on other various and non-economic forms of interest. Bentley's view leads to the tautology by uniting the interest and the road group and for this reason; the possibility of experimental application and testability is limited. In his analysis, Bourdieu showed that the fields of academia, art, etc., have interests that are not necessarily economic interests and are governed by rules other than those of the world of economics. The process of segregation of social worlds, each of which has its own interests or spheres of power, requires that social researchers be equipped with a conceptual and theoretical tool to discover the interests, the relationships between field actors, and the internal rules of these social fields. This conceptual tool, in addition to being more in line with social reality, unlike the Marxist concept of benefit, is not limited to the economic and possibly political sense, and can also discover non-economic interests that govern human life and measure people's relationships with these types of non-economic benefits in addition to the above, the advantage of Bourdieu's understanding of interest over Bentley's understanding is that it is free from the flaws of tautology. And he does not equate the benefit with the field and states that the interest belongs to the field and not the field itself. It also has this advantage over micro-level theorists. In addition to the micro level (at the level of family and group friendship, etc.), it also has the ability to be applied at the macro and collective level. With these interpretations, the author believes that Bourdieu's sociological application of the concept of interest can be a practical tool for social science researchers to understand the social world.