Journal of Applied Sociology

23-38

Authors: Hossein Afrasiabi , Yasin Khorampour

Introduction Living in a modern and global age has many crucial consequences for contemporary social actors. Transnational society or global culture is considered as a consequence of the modernization process, with a dynamic and mobile base, which is reflexivity in social life. Social life is encompassed with this fact that individuals' functions become continuously evaluated, modifying by fresh data, and the elements become fundamentally changed. Reflexivity about self and various aspects of life as well as choosing among different alternatives is an opportunity that modern society offers to people. Therefore, in modern society, humans review continuously their self as how, and what it should be. Reflexivity is a process of self-definition and redefinition by observing and focusing on information about possible ways of life. Reflexivity is a mechanism in human thinking and behavior which sets human action and controls it, of course, this mechanism is different in traditional culture in comparison to modern culture. This paper addresses reflexivity and the related factors among young citizens of Yazd city. Materials and Methods The research Approach used in the study was quantitative and the method was survey, with an analytical and descriptive goal. Data was collected by using researcher-designed questionnaire. Sample size was determined to be 384 cases, using Cochran's sample size formula. Multiple cluster sampling was used to sample, dividing the city into different areas of north, south and center area. Research validity is formal validity in which the items were evaluated by sociology professors. The reliability of the scale was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha coefficient which showed that the items are in an internal correlation with each other. The data was analyzed in SPSS software. Discussion of Results & Conclusions According to descriptive results, the Mean of reflexivity among respondents was 19/16 which is above of the scale mean (15). Most of respondents had a modest reflexivity ratio. Results showed that it is not significantly different between men and women. But there is a significant relationship between education and income with reflexivity. Mass media and cultural globalization with reflexivity are in a direct relationship, that is, as use of mass media is increased, the ratio of reflexivity increases too. There is a significant relationship between religiosity and reflexivity. Multivariate regression results showed that cultural globalization and religiosity are the most important predictors of reflexivity. These two variables alone explained 17 percent variance of reflexivity variable. Generally, with respect to research results it can be said that Iranian society is a changing society and is experiencing fast changes in different aspects. This change, which has been accompanied by current structural and cultural transformations in a global scale, have led to a pluralism in the youths' social world life and consequently have formed new attitudes and values among them. One consequence of this situation is the formation and growth of a special kind of personal identity, which has reflexivity at its core. Information and communicative technologies have led people in different areas of the world to become more informed about different lifestyles, values and behavioral norms. The result of this process is the creation of new identities among youth. Keywords: Reflexivity, Culture, Globalization, Religiosity, Youth.

57-74

Authors: Ali Akbar Tajmazinani , Mahdieh Larijani

Introduction With the growing trend of ageing in countries such as Iran, the issue of old population and its implications have become of prominent importance. Ageing coefficient of Iranian population in the year 2011 was 24.35 percent, which has increased nearly 14% compared to 1998. Increase in the country’s population today is much more noticeable than any time before. Since the problems of the elderly have become a global concern, United Nations has named the year 1999 as “International Year of the Elderly”. One of the most important topics with regard to the elderly is their social exclusion. Exclusion of the elderly exposes them at risk of mental and physical problems. These people are vulnerable to many problems such as financial shortfalls, disability, illness, especially when the decline of pensions and social activities undermines their morale. Responding to needs of the elderly is very important at this stage of their lives in order to avoid experiencing social exclusion. Ageing of the population, especially the elderly, for countries seeking to provide the security and welfare of older people are a real challenge. On the other hand, costs of increasing elderly population and ignorance of this group for society makes the need for this research. In this research, we study effective factors on social exclusion among Varamin’s elderly. To provide a theoretical framework for the research, various sociological theories, ageing theories and theories of social exclusion were reviewed. Finally, a multilevel analysis model of social exclusion was devised based on a combination of the relevant theories. Materials & Methods The study was conducted using the survey method. Number of respondents, according to Cochran formula, is 378 persons, selected by using stratified random sampling. Data were collected through a questionnaire constructed by the researcher. For data analysis, SPSS program, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. To assess the validity and reliability of the research, content validity and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were used. Cronbach’s alpha for the social exclusion variable was 0.80 and 0.94 for value orientation. Discussion of Results & Conclusions Descriptive analysis of the respondents’ profile showed that most of them were illiterate followed by those with a higher school diploma. The monthly income of 33% of the elderly was between 600 and 800 thousand Tomans. In terms of cultural capital and socio-economic status, approximately 60% of the elderly were belonging to a low-level category. The majority of respondents tended to hold fatalistic value orientation, with women showing more fatalism than men. In terms of social exclusion, it was the case for 10% of Varamin’s elderly to experience a relatively high level of social exclusion. The majority of them (nearly 74%) experienced a medium level of exclusion while 16% were not excluded at all. Generally, women experienced more exclusion than men. The results of inferential statistics indicate that gender, cultural capital, socio-economic status, and value orientation are associated with social exclusion. In other words, the social exclusion of women are more than men and elderly with higher cultural capital, socio-economic status and value orientation face fewer social exclusion. According to Bourdieu, cultural capital is accumulated during the socialization of the individual. Those who fail to make use of cultural goods, has no ability to prove their permanent interests. Weber completed the Marx theory, outlined the concept of socio-economic status and believed that a person’s social prestige will be determined in this way. Here, too, the elderly with higher socio-economic status have less social exclusion. Finally the results showed that greatest variance of social exclusion is explained by socio-economic status and cultural capital. Keywords: Elderly, Social exclusion, Gender, Cultural Capital, Socio-Economic Status, Value Orientation.

99-116

Authors: Leila Yazdanpanah , Tayebeh Nikvarz

Introduction The present article examines relationship between social health and social factors responsible for its increase or decrease, since health is an important factor in all societies, and is one of the most basic human needs in life. Social health, along physical and psychological health, is fundamentally important for general health. It could be shown in one's evaluation of his or her social life and its quality. So investigation about the social health of male and female students as an important social group has been the main purpose of this article. This study is based on a research in Kerman on the basis of key theories in the field of social health with five dimensions of social integration, acceptance, contribution, coherence and actuation. Materials and Methods The study is a survey using questionnaire along with interview with the students of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman. It includes 375 male and female students currently studying at the university, who are selected by random classified sampling method. It is worth mentioning that different courses are selected according to the number of male and female students in each nine faculties of the University. Data are analyzed with SPSS and different statistical tests were utilized. Discussion of Results and Conclusions Overall, 51.2% of the selected students are female and 48.8% are male, of whom 79.7% are single with the average age of 22 and only 17% are employed. The finding shows that the average social health among male students is slightly higher that female students and in other respects there are meaningful differences between the two sexes in a way that average social contribution among male students is higher than female students and average social actuation is higher among female students than male ones. When it comes to social coherence, they are close to each other. Upon further examination of the data, it became clear that social trust, social contribution, accessibility of facilities and services, self–evaluation of social class, family, marriage status, employment, place of birth and the major of the student, all are in meaningful relationships with social health. Also 54% of the changes of the variance of social health are explained by two factors of social trust and contribution. In general it can be said that lack of contribution to social activities and lack of trust are two barriers for stepping into social settings. In such a situation, one feels that there is no common point between personal and social values and becomes indifferent and trustless regarding social norms (decline of social integration). Therefore one feels that social fate depends on external structures and not on social components, and does not fell any potential ability for the process of evaluation (decline of social actuation). With this mentality people may feel that society is so complicated that it is difficult to understand and predict the future (decline of social coherence). Therefore positive attitude towards society and even people is distorted (decline of social acceptance). When these attitudes are created one loses his ability and feels that he has no role in the progress and future of his society (decline of social contribution) and so his social health decreases. This results in contradiction in his personality, distortion of social behavior and expansion of fraud, social abnormalities, delinquencies, etc. Therefore social health is an important factor in accepting social norms which enables the person to create a positive balance and avoids unfavorable responses. People who possess social health can face with life challenges and have a better function in society. Since one of the main factors responsible for social health is social trust, we supposed that increase in social health depends on increase in trust to others and social institutions. One way to increase social health, therefore, is to present clear information, respecting rules and focusing on needs and aspirations of the young. Keywords: Social Health, Social Trust, Social Contribution, Male and Female Students.

139-160

Authors: Fatemeh Golabi , Nazila Akhshi

Introduction Social happiness is part of the social welfare component and depends more on social and economic determinants than on psychological and medical interventions. Meanwhile, it is one of the core concepts of sustainable development. Being happy is just one of the desirable wishes of life in every society. A nation is fresher and certainly wealthier when its citizens are happy. In this type of society, citizens have optimistic attitudes towards life and things around them. From 2000 onwards, variables such as happiness, hope in future, pleasure and satisfaction have been included as key variables in UN debates to determine level of developments in countries. This phenomenon is measured by the density of social networks and relationships, in many studies is associated with social health and happiness (Kawachi, 2008). Durkheim showed that suicide rates in populations with low levels of participation and social cohesion were more than cohesive communities (Halpern, 2005). Theorists argue that when people reach to a desired location or target, they become happy. According to Lerner, new communities are participatory societies in which modernization process is advanced, a move from traditional society to participatory society is inevitable. In this view, economic participation means increased activity in the market and an increase in income, political participation means participation in elections, cultural participation means utilization of mass media and emotional involvement means empathy and psychological mobility (Lerner 1969: 86). Materials & Methods This is quantitative study based on survey. We used Descriptive statistics and indicators such as dispersion and mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum scores. For inferential statistics and to test the hypotheses, we used Pearson's correlation coefficient and analysis of variance. Also for explaining the social happiness variable, a stepwise multiple regression equation was used. Research population include all students of Azad University, branch of Ardebil, whose total number was 10223 at the year 2012-1213, of whom a sample of 370 individuals was selected using stratified random sampling method. Discussion of Results & Conclusions The results of the research show that there is a significant relationship between participation and happiness, which is in line with the results of other empirical investigations by Akbarpourbeny and colleagues (2011), Eliasi (2002) and Neshatdoost et al. (2009) and Haller and Hadlr (2006). Similar to Hezarjarib and Astinfeshan research (2010), social happiness in our study was in a moderate level. At the same time, this research is in line with safari's research (2010) regarding lack of a significant relationship between discipline and marital status with social happiness. Likewise, the results emphasize the lack of a significant difference between males and females in social participation and happiness. But Similar to Eddington and Showmen's research (2004), female subjects seem to be happier than male ones. In this study, the three dimensions of participation, and collaborative spirit have a greater impact on social happiness, which is in line with the results of Larson (2000) and Peterson (2000). By looking at different aspects of happiness, it becomes clear that respondents obtain high scores in personal dimension, but in social dimension this score is lower. This is consistent with Lyubomirsky and colleagues’ research (2005). Keywords: Social Happiness, Social Participation, Objective Participation, Subjective Participation, Spirit of Participation

173-194

Authors: Nasrin Panjepour , Seyed Hassan Sheikh , Soraya Memar

Introduction Many social studies confirm that religion has an influential role in forming attitudes, trends and the meaning of social behaviors. However, so far little attention has been paid to examining the relationship between religious integrity and architectural space. Regarding to the fact that in many parts of the world cultural heritage places such as mosques, shrines, squares, temples and streets are alive and the public can use them actively, the present study intends to examine the relationship between religious identity and cultural heritage conservation. Based on the importance of youth's values, socialization and demographic characteristics of the Iranian population, youth were selected as this research's subjects. Materials and Methods According to research goals, to assess the role of religion in social life and focusing on active preservation of cultural heritage, three indicators of belief, emotion and outcome were selected to measure religious identity. In this study, religious identity is reflected in the role of a person in reproducing religious institutions and the importance of religious behaviors in lifestyle and interactions. There are two approaches to preserve cultural heritage: passive and active. While the first one aims at preventing any damage to cultural heritage, in the active approach, cultural heritage is more than buildings and structures. It includes values and history of a society; thus preservation requires social engagement and development of social bonds between people and places. If people do not understand the hidden values of buildings, their protection loses its importance. For active preservation, three indicators of emotion, cognition and function were distinguished. Data were gathered by survey, using multistage cluster sampling. A total of 343 people were questioned in 6 Isfahan urban districts as sample size. To test the assumptions, structural equation modeling was used in AMOS software. Discussion of Results and Conclusions In terms of religious identity, the scores of indicators were 4.12, 3.43 and 2.61 for belief, emotion and outcome, respectively; which indicates that the youth's believes are considerably stronger than religious behaviors. In cultural heritage preservation, indicators were 4.11, 2.63 and 2.36 for emotional, cognitive and functional dimensions, respectively. It shows that the youth are considerably engaged with cultural heritage emotionally, but they have little knowledge about them and behave poorly to support and preserve them. Findings indicate that the relationship between religious identity and emotional, cognitive and functional indicators of preservation are statistically significant. With 95 percent confidence it could be asserted that religious identity is positively correlated with cultural heritage preservation. The religious identity can explain 0.15 of the preservation’s variance. Among socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, education and marital status, only respondents’ education had a significant positive effect on the conservation of cultural heritage. Model fit indices show that the model has an acceptable fit. Based on the results, strengthening the religious identity will increase the desire to preserve the cultural heritage. In other words, people with stronger social bonds have greater potential to collaborate with governmental and non-governmental organizations, in order to preserve the monuments. Regarding the role of religious leaders to prepare lifestyle-based information to the public, and guide them, confident religious people can play an important role in the preservation of cultural heritage. Understanding the effect of religious identity on heritage conservation will promote and develop functions of religion and heritage; Deep understanding of religious identity and related values embedded in cultural monuments, gives authorities and researchers a new insight about the relationship between the integrity of users and the preservation of a place. From this viewpoint, cultural heritage will be a source of identity, power and social responsibility. Keywords: Cultural Heritage, Heritage Conservation, Religious Identity, National Identity.

209-225

Authors: Sadegh Jahanbakhsh Ganjeh , Zainab Darami, Sahar Jahanbakhsh Ganjeh , Abolghassem Nouri

Introduction Among different organizational variables, social exchange theory has had an effective role in explaining and perceiving organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and organizational justice. Exchange of justice is an important aspect of social exchange theory. A number of studies have investigated the relationship between perceived organizational justice and employees' attitudes. However, the issue that is examined in organizational justice and OCB is how employees should be treated such that they perceive the existence of justice in the organization. This study aimed at examining a proposed model based on the mediating role of procedural and perceived distributive justices in the relationship between supervisor's perceived support and participation in decision making with organizational citizenship behavior Materials & Methods The present study is of relational type. The population of the study include all employees of Agricultural Society of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad in Iran in 2011. From 490 employees, 120 were selected based on simple random sampling method. The questionnaires in this study include (1) Participation in decision-making inventory that was invented by Parnel and Bell (2001), (2) Supervisor's support inventory that was made by Eisenberger et al. (1986), (3) Organizational citizenship behavior questionnaire which was invented by Smith et al. (1983), (4) Distributive Justice Inventory as was made by Colquitt (2001), and (5) Procedural Justice Inventory as was made by Niehoff and Moorman (1993). Also, the analysis of the data started with preliminary analysis (zero-order Pearson correlations) to gain a basic insight of data. Then, more sophisticated analyzes were performed to assess the fitness of the proposed model, all of which were performed by Structural equation modeling (SEM) using maximum likelihood estimation of AMOS software, 16th version (Arbuckle, 1997). In order to determine that whether the proposed model fit the data, a combination of fitness parameters were used. To investigate the indirect (intermediate) effects in the proposed model, Baron and Kennyʼs (1986) method was used and to determine its significance, Sobelʼs (1982) test was used. Discussion of Results & Conclusions The results of the study showed that the perception of justice (both procedural and distributive) has significant effects on the participation of employees in decision-making and consequently showing organizational citizenship behavior. As Kinicki and Kreitner (2006) claimed, justice in the organization shows employees' perceptions of fair treatment in the working environment and it is a factor which is made on the basis of the working conditions (Greenberg & Colquitt, 2005). When employees' opinions are listened to and they are included in decision making processes, they think that justice exists in the organization and rewards and facilities are distributed justly. Leventhal (1980) believes that fair procedures are characterized by the following properties: distribution of facilities should be unbiased and equal for all people over time, it should be carried out based on accurate information, it should be correctable, and it should be based on moral and ethical norms; Thus for their participation in decision-making, employees should be informed about the organization's information and they should have equal opportunity to express their opinions and implicit values and norms such as fairness and consistency in the allocation of benefits and resources. The findings of this study are in line with the studies mentioned in the literature (Muhammad, 2004; Zhang, Lee & Zou, 2010), which show the importance of the mediating role of perceived organizational support in the organization's inputs and outputs (including OCB, job satisfaction, organizational commitment). The results of this study and other attempts, which have been carried out with regard to organizational justice theory, point to the significance of this mediating variable as an important motivational instrument in organizational behaviors and officials and managers should consider it. Based on organizational justice theory, it can be predicted that staff react against the presence or absence of organizational justice in the workplace. One of these reactions is the increase or decrease in the output data; in that when staff observes that the justice does not exist in the organization, they get negative stress and thus in order to reduce such stress they try to decrease their participation and inputs in the organization. In such cases, their organizational citizenship behavior might decrease. Contrariwise, if staff feel that organizational justice exist in the workplace, they become motivated to increase their participation and inputs in the organization by helping behaviors such as organizational citizenship behavior. On the other hand, in the proposed model it was hypothesized that if employees feel that they are under the support of their supervisors, they show more OCB perceiving procedural and distributive justice; this hypothesis, however, has not been confirmed and the research hypothesis based on the mediating role of justice in the relationship between supervisor's perceived support and OCB was rejected. The reason might be explained by the fact that when employees consider their supervisor as one who has his own supervisor so he has no role in distributing rewards and allocating resources. The organizational norms are determined in the way that only senior managers make decisions and supervisors and junior officials have no freedom of action. This finding is in disagreement with the findings of a number of previous studies. The reason for such disagreement can be found in different working atmospheres in various organizations. In some organizations, managers give their supervisors freedom of action in decision-making procedures and processes and allow them to determine the way rewards should be distributed among staff. Though, in some other organizations supervisors might not have such freedom and they might have only higher positions in terms of rank but are similar with their subordinates in terms of power over action. In such organizations, even if staff perceive their supervisor's support, they might not have a clear understanding of justice in their organizations and if they show behaviors beyond the call of duty and OCB, it is because of the respect they have toward supportive behaviors of their supervisors, not because of the perceived justice and this lends further support to Greenberg and Colquitt' theory (2005), who claimed that the perception of justice in the organization is based on the working environment and the atmosphere of the organization. Keywords: Participation in Decision-Making, Supervisor's Perceived Support, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Procedural Justice, Distributive Justice