نشریه علوم اجتماعی
سال بیستم شماره 3 (پیاپی 45، پاییز 1402)

Social trust is proposed as an important and effective variable in political participation in all communities. This research explored the relationship between different aspects of social trust and students’ political participation. At first theories of Putnam, Giddens, and Sztompka regarding the concept of trust and varied theoretical approaches to political participation were discussed and then four hypotheses were designed and tested. Considering the mentioned theories, four types of trust (interpersonal trust, generalized trust, trust in political institutions, and trust in political elites) and different approaches to political participation were explained in detail. Finally, a theoretical framework and a questionnaire were designed. The main hypothesis of research is about the relationship between the amount of social trust and political participation. The data were collected by distributing the questionnaire between 376 students in all grades at the University of Isfahan. The results showed that two variables of generalized trust with a 20 percent correlation coefficient, the trust in the political institutions with 18 percent, and the trust in elites with 23 percent have a positive significant relationship with political participation. After analyzing the data, two post-test hypotheses by dividing political and non-political political participation were designed and tested. The results of the Regression Test showed that the generalized trust explains 38 percent of the electoral political participation model and the variable “trust in elites” explains 14 percent of the non-electoral political participation model. The results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that three indicators which are elite accountability, elite honesty, and belief in efficiency of political institutions explain more than 85 percent of the amount of political participation.

Current research sought to understand the Mamauk sub-culture in Zahedan city as a crooked sub-culture, the characteristics that govern the relationships between its members and the wider society, and the behavioral and thought patterns accepted in it from the perspective of its members. This research was conducted using qualitative research approach. Using purposeful sampling and conducting 23 semi-structured interviews were conducted with trained native interviewers or those who had the experience of being a member of the mentioned subculture. The results showed that the participants defined their membership in the form of concepts like Beras-Dari. That is, in the Mamauk group, the members are considered as brothers to whom do “any” thing for the other brother (another member of the group). Membership in the mentioned group was based on internal desire, unfavorable economic conditions, encouragement of relatives, membership of important others, face preservation, and the prevention of oppression. Moreover, they said that the existence of such issues as neighborhood midwifery experience, local pathetic competition, the control and limitation of neighborhood relations makes the ground for fulfilling the membership. Moreover, in facing the upcoming challenges, the participants use such solutions such as persuasion, fierce war, and release and escape. This is a way to reduce the challenges resulting from being a member of the small group. Also, being a member of the Mamauk group has positive consequences (e.g., financial supports, support in conflicts, enjoying in free time, and expanding friendly social relations) and negative consequences (e.g., negative activism, drug addiction, feelings of loss, and making enemies, and social stigma). In general, the findings describe the relationship model of the members through axial form of “victim avoidance”.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the political education in the social studies curriculum of secondary schools of Iran. The research approach was mixed and the strategy used was quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The statistical population consisted of the social studies books of secondary schools. The sample was selected using purposeful method. A researcher-made checklist was used to collect the data, and in order to evaluate the validity of the indicators, content validity ration (CVR) was used. Content validity was 0.98. Moreover, data reliability was calculated using the agreement coefficient of 94%. Descriptive statistics was used for analyzing the data in the quantitative part and to test the appropriateness of attention, the Chi-square test was used. Thematic analysis was also used in the qualitative section. The results showed that totally 31 times the attention were paid to the component of political education. The highest frequent issues were related to the index “understanding regional and international political issues” (with a frequency of 13, that is, 41.1%) and “the right of people to decide on their political destiny” (with a frequency of 10, that is, 32.2%) respectively. On the contrary, the indicators “the right to criticize the officials”, “the right to criticize social institutions”, “the accountability of social institutions”, and “the criteria for recognizing and choosing the right in elections” each recording 1 case (3.3%) had the lowest frequency. No attention has been paid to the indicators “reforming social institutions” and “attention to political pluralism”. The results of the Chi-square test also showed that there is not a proper balance in dealing with political education components in social studies books of secondary schools of Iran.

The Islamic Republic of Iran Airlines (Iran Air) is one of the oldest global and regional airlines and the core of the Iran’s aviation industry. Examining the activity status of this airline company over that past six decades indicates a downward trend in its share in the Iran’s air transportation market as one of the most important indicators of airline competitiveness. In addition to the general business strategies of airlines and economic factors, what have significantly reduced Iran Air's competitive ability in the air transport market are the non-economic factors and social facts imposed on this firm from the outside. This study sought to analyze the interpretation and understanding of competitiveness as the core of the success or failure of economic enterprises and also to identify the social variables involved in the competitiveness of airlines from the perspective of top and senior managers of Iran Air. This study was conducted with a qualitative approach and thematic analysis method. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 23 former and current managers of Iran Air. PEST analysis tool was used to categorize the themes. The topics analyzed in the framework of political, economic, social and technological macro environmental variables are: the quality of government interventions, sanctions, the weakness of the regulatory body, the government's attitude towards air transportation, market structure, company characteristics, Iran Air Pension Fund crisis, management instability, state management limitations, fleet diversity, entry of competitors, exchange rate, peoples’ attitudes, family size, religious beliefs, and distraction from technological developments. The results showed that among macro environmental variables, social variables (family size and religious beliefs) are considered great opportunities for boosting Iran Air’s competitiveness.

This research tried to explore social well-being through structural equation model based on sociological factors among the students of Jahrom city. The sample of this survey consisted of 359 secondary school students of Jahrom city in 2022, who were selected using Cochran's formula and stratified random sampling method. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire. For the validity of the research, face validity was used. Moreover, Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability coefficient (CR) were used to check its reliability. The data were analyzed at descriptive and inferential levels through SPSS and PLS software. The findings showed that there is a positive significant relationship between social trust, social support, and class identity with social well-being. Moreover, religiosity has a positive impact on social well-being through its influence on social trust. The partial least squares method of the general pattern of the research also showed that the independent variables of the research were able to explain 41% of the variance of the dependent variable. From among the influential variables, social trust had the highest positive impact (0.543) on the social well-being variable. In addition to the positive impact, social trust played the role of a perfect mediator in the relationship between religiosity and social well-being. Considering the impacy of the mentioned variables on social well-being, it is recommended to strengthen it in society, especially for students.

The increasing trend of political apathy has challenged the political systems of the contemporary world so much that they have to seriously analyze the conditions that created it. In this regard, this research tried to answer two questions using quantitative method and survey technique: 1) What is the level of meta-behavioral political apathy (feeling powerlessness, sense of meaninglessness, feeling abnormality, feeling isolation, and feeling alienation) of the studied youth?; 2) To what extent have the economic determinants (decrease of incomes, increase of inflation, and lack of benefit from participation) influenced the meta-behavioral political apathy? The statistical population included 431,288 young people aged 18 to 29 living in the city of Kermanshah in 2022. Using the Cochran formula and cluster sampling method, the data were collected through the distribution of 400 researcher-made questionnaires with a validity of 0.88 and reliability of 0.80. Structural equation model and AMOS software were used to test the effect of economic determinants on the increase of meta-behavioral political apathy in the form of an experimental model. The findings showed that the meta-behavioral political apathy rate of the studied youth is 71.16 percent. Moreover, the results pertaining to the second research question showed that the decrease in income with a factorial effect of 0.80, an increase in inflation with a factorial effect of 0.88, and the lack of benefit from participation with a factorial effect of 0.71 had a significant impact on the increase of meta-behavioral political apathy explained a total of 62% of the increase. In addition, the structural model, while supporting the research hypothesis, showed that economic determinants have a correlation with a 0.79 factorial effect on meta-behavioral political apathy

In recent years, the increase of violent robberies, as a violent crime, has attracted the attention of thinkers and researchers in the field of sociology. Violent robberies threaten the quality of life, social stability, and the sense of social security of social activists at different levels. This, in turn, affects the social development indicators in different dimensions. Considering the issue, the study tried to identify the socio-economic factors affecting violent robberies in Khuzestan province. Qualitative method and interpretive structural modeling approach were used for this study. The criterion for participant inclusion was having sufficient expertise and information about violent robberies, and the condition for stopping the data collection process was the consensus of experts on the subject and theoretical saturation. The data were analyzed using MicMac software. The participants included 33 security forces experts of Khuzestan province and professors of sociology, psychology and economics of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz. Purposeful sampling method was used to select the participants. The results showed that the rate of violent robberies in Khuzestan province (from the experts' view) was high. The ranking of identified factors identified by MicMac software showed that the most important factors of violent robberies in Khuzestan province respectively were: social anomie; cultural poverty; normalization of theft among thieves; drug addiction; economic-social inequality; poverty and unemployment.

Law and law-abiding behaviors are the foundation of the stability and organization of societies and the establishment of effective governance in any community. However, the abnormal phenomenon of law avoidance and violation by citizens in all societies. It is evident that evasion of the law, like any other negative phenomenon that causes harm, can impose irreparable damages on the society in the long run. The present research was conducted with the aim of studying the sociological relationship between family social support and evasion of the law among residents of Sari city who aged 18 to 30. The research method was descriptive correlational, and the entire population of citizens aged 18 to 30 in Sari, totaling 90,000 individuals, were included in the statistical population. Using the Cochran formula, a sample of 383 individuals was selected through multi-stage cluster sampling, and questionnaires on family support and evasion of the law were distributed among them. For data analysis, descriptive statistics such as frequency, means, and standard deviations were used in the descriptive statistics section. Moreover, inferential statistics such as Pearson correlation test, multiple regression analysis, and one-way analysis of variance were utilized using SPSS software. The results of the Pearson correlation indicated a significant negative correlation between family social support, family-based experiences, perceptions from the family, feelings obtained from the family, and evasion of the law among the participants. The results of the regression also showed that experiences obtained from the family had the highest beta value as the best predictor of evasion of the law among the participants. Moreover, the findings showed a significant difference in the level of family social support and evasion of the law among the participants.