نشریه زن در توسعه و سیاست
سال نهم شماره 1 (بهار 1390)

The transition of Iranian society from a traditional order to a modern one and experiencing the required life is considered as one of the causes in rising marriage age among girls. Accordingly this research has probed theoretically and methodologically into the underlying roots. For the purpose of this research, a survey method has been used to gather data. The statistical sample includes two groups of married and single girls aged from 25 to 44 years old. The sample is drawn out from five city centers including Tehran, Sari, Khorram Abad, Mashhad and Sanandaj. Results show that girls that marry late in their life 1) have more education, 2) have non- material attitude to marriage, and 3) have more beliefs that by marriage, lost opportunity cost is more than marriage opportunity. Results imply that considering the experience of modernity in macro, middle and micro levels, dire consequences could be expected provided such experiences are not accompanied by well sketched plans and policies. This also holds true when the economical, social or cultural conditions of society, do not meets the requirements for adopting such transforms.

Nowadays, new developments in the realm of criminological studies have considerably aroused social science criminal researcher’s attention toward the other involved side, which are the very victims of such crimes. Considering this, researchers have attempted to investigate, through victim-oriented approaches, the ruling condition of crime creation so that they might take sufficient measures to prevent the crimes or reduce and alleviate their consequences.This paper which is based on qualitative research aims to analyze the grounds for crimes committed against women according to their accounts.This is done by means of qualitative reasearch methods and performed interviews with 65 women with the age ranging from 19 to 60.The findings of this paper suggest that the interviewed women consider the following factors as the reasons underlying the crimes committed against them which include women’s carelessness, type of daily activities, behavior and dress code, violence in the private and public environments, familial disorder and lack of sociability, inconsistent self-defense trainings, urban environment disfiguration, existence of hidden crime-causing locations such as under passes and dark places, social and economical issues like unemployment and poverty along with women’s physiological features.

This study tries to review the reasons for which young girls tend to perform beauty surgeries on their faces, within the framework of Veblen’s “Theory of the Leisure Class” and his “Social Models” such as fiscal ownership. The statistical society has been the girl students of the University of Tehran selected through snow ball sampling and discourse analysis was applied to analyze the semi-structured interviews with them. Discourse analysis results of beauty surgeries show that the theoretical approach of Veblen regarding social models is citable and extensible. Students show a changing tendency from “capital ownership” towards “symbolic ownership” and as a new cultural-social power they show a changing tendency from capital envy and capital conspicuous consumption to symbolic envy and symbolic (beauty) Conspicuous Consumption. Gender analysis, media and generation objects play a key role in forming the discourse of face beauty surgeries.

In recent years, the high level of consumption in Iranian society has provoked wide social and political debates. Nevertheless, there have been few systematic social studies to examine social and individual factors that influence consumption values and behaviors. This paper examines social determinants of consumption aspiration of married women. Data for the study collected through a cross-sectional survey in 2009 among a representative sample of 684 respondents in the city of Yazd, Iran.To study the impact of socio-economic factors on the consumption aspirations, in this paper we conceptualize and evaluate the impact of the hypothesized relationships at three levels: 1- individual characteristics of respondents, 2- intergenerational influence of the parental characteristics, and 3- family and household socio-economic condition.Our analysis confirms the effect of individual attributes, socio-economic condition of household and intergenerational influence of parental characteristics on the level of consumption aspiration of respondents. In evaluating the impact of individual characteristics (including respondent's age, education, mass media exposure and place of origin), findings reveal the most important impact of mass media exposure on the formation of consumerism life style and consumption culture. An examination of the household's condition hypothesis (including the household income and household size) indicate a powerful and direct effect of family income on the consumption aspiration. Findings also confirm the intergeneration influence of parent's characteristics on the consumption aspirations of respondents.

This study aims to find the reasons for women’s failure to achieve more managerial positions despite the increasing number of women higher education graduates, and the effect of social capital on the promotion of female personnel. The statistical sample includes the personnel of Sepah Bank and two different methods, qualitative and quantitative, were used to run the research. A probabilistic and stratified sampling method was used for the quantitative part while a purposive counterpart was used in the qualitative part. Quantitative measurements take advantage of questionnaires and SPSS to gather necessary data and analyze them in descriptive terms. The qualitative part, however, utilizes techniques of observation and semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that women with higher socio-economic status enjoy a greater job promotion opportunity but it does not show any difference between the two types of women in terms of marital status, number of children and religious tendencies. It shows that women with high ranking managerial positions have a far greater amount and the structure of social capital -namely social participation, relations and trust - than other working women. Data analysis reveals that men and women differ in terms of the amount and type of the relations which they make and also supports that discriminations between men and women regarding their access to the important and strategic positions and resources prevent women from attaining most high level and strategic jobs.

In today's world, women's participation in social activities is considered as a measure of their social and civil rights. However, there are challenges to such participation. This research aims to investigate these socio-cultural obstacles, comparing athletic and non-athletic women. The present study examines women's sports participation as a form of behavior which includes Fishbein and Ajzen theories, social learning theory, cultural capital, Bem's feministic theories, Chaftez theory and also Chu's theory, through survey and data gathering technique of questionnaire. A t-test was run for independent samples along with logistic regression proportional to research theories to compare the two groups. 200 non-athletic and 50 athletic women were selected a statistical society of 106404 women aged 20 to 40 residing in Hamedan Province. The results show that athletic women enjoy a greater economic, social and cultural status and a more comprehensive social protection. Moreover, the families of athletic women have more positive attitude towards life than non-athletes. Accordingly, athletic women demonstrate a significantly lower acceptance rate for cliché beliefs in comparison to non – athletic women. However, the results also reveal that in terms of perceived usefulness, there is no significant difference between these two groups. Generally, cultural capital and individual inclination are two influential variables in the probability of women participating in sports

Needs assessment is “gaps between current conditions and desired conditions”. Most educational programs in extension education pay little attention to clients’ needs. This devalues the assessment as a policy making tool. However, this study will approach both rural women and extension agents’ perception, supposing rural women’s needs are considered to find areas of match or mismatch among stakeholders. Therefore, the survey aimed at inspecting educational needs of rural women in Ghomum Village using Borich needs assessment model and quadrant analysis. Through survey methodology, Borich (1980) obtained some data that could be ranked in order of priority. He believed that through needs assessment model rural women should judge about their own needs. Other researchers have also defined approaches to assessing educational needs. Through quadrant analysis, Witkin (1984) used importance as a qualifying factor in deriving priorities without fallacy of basing priority decisions on simple discrepancies. The population consisted of rural women and community extension agents in Gomum village. 100 women were selected and 35 of them were brought in to the study. Through Borich needs assessment model the questionnaires revealed that home economics, child care and methods of cooking were their top three needs. And quadrant analysis showed that educational needs were also ranked high. As a result both techniques should be used. Specifically, issues such as home economics, child care, and method of cooking should be more emphasized when planning extension classes for women residing in Gomum village.