Journal of Applied Sociology

1-15

Authors: ebrahim hajiani , zahra iravani , armin Amir

Introduction Ethnic identity is a type of collective identity that can connect and consolidate a group of people who have geographical, lingual, historical, racial and religious similarities with each other. Issues of ethnic and religious plurality, variety of cults, and ethnic and religious minorities have extreme importance and are the most important tools for fighting colonialism (Asariannejad, quotes Ahmadipour and others, 1391:45). Ethnic identity and its accumulation is an important social problem in multiethnic countries because it has a close relationship with national cohesion. Ethnic identity accumulation cause each ethnic group which is more powerful than others to take over the resources of a society (Navah and Taghavinasab, 1388:65). Due to cultural plurality and multi-ethnicity of Iran and Lebanon, also because of close relations and great interest between the two countries, the main question in this article is to see if there is a meaningful difference between the rate of ethnic identity tendency among Iranian and Lebanese students? Materials & Methods This study is a survey research and uses questionnaire technique in order to data collect. The sampling method is quota sampling. Statistical society includes Iranian students who belong to four major ethnicities of Tork, Kord, Lor and Fars in Tehran universities and Lebanese students who belong to four ethnicities of Druze, Sunni, Shia and Maruni Christian in Beirut universities. Sample size in each country is 400 individuals. In Iran ethnic ratio is as follows: Fars 50%, Tork 25%, Kord 10% and Lor 8%, respectively. Ethnic ratio in Lebanon is: Maronite 18%, Sunni 24%, Shia 27% and Druze 6%, respectively. Sample sizes for each ethnic group in Iran and Lebanon are as follows. In Iran: Fars 108 men, 107women, Torks 54 men, 53 women, Kords 22 men, 21 women, Lors 18 men, 17 women. In Lebanon: Maronite Christians 48 men, 48 women, Sunnis: 64 men, 64 women, Druzes: 16 men, 16 women, and Shias 72 men, 72 women. Discussion of Results & Conclusions Hypothesis 1 says that it seems ethnic identity among Iranian and Lebanese students has a meaningful difference. Based on the comparison of average variable among students in Iran and Lebanon, we may conclude that the rate of ethnic identity of Lebanese students is higher than the Iranian students. Hypothesis 2 says that it seems the relationship of ethnic identify with national identify, globalization and culture of tolerance between Iran and Lebanon is meaningfully different. Ethnic identity in Iran has reverse relationship with national identity while Lebanese ethnic identity has a direct relationship with national identity. The relationship of ethnic identity with globalization and culture of tolerance in each country has accumulative orientation. In each of these countries, growth of students' culture of tolerance has direct relationship with their ethnic identity. This finding is in line with the viewpoints of Robertson, Castells and Giddens. National identity among Iranian students has a reverse relationship with their ethnic identity, and this finding corresponds with Finney's linear approach. Also, national identity among Lebanese students has a positive relationship with their ethnic identity, a finding consistent with Finney’s non-linear approach.

41-58

Authors: Soheila Sadeghi Fassaei , Narmin Nikdel

Introduction Social humiliation is a problem which occurs during communication sometimes attentively and sometimes inattentively. Increasing growth of psychological problems and social consequences can drag our attention toward a new problem in the field of pathology and raise new questions about humiliation which have been ignored for a long time. The object of this paper is to map a conceptual space for humiliation, to be understood as an emotion and a social process occurring within a network of social relationships. The word humiliation has its roots in the Latin word humus, earth. This entails a spatial orientation, a downward orientation, literally a ‘de-gradation.’ ‘Ned-verdigelse’ (Norwegian), ‘Er-niedrig-ung’ (German) and ‘a-baisse-ment’ (French) all mean ‘de-gradation.’ All these words are built on the same spatial, orientational metaphor which places itself within a framework of relations. Analysis of the etymology of the word humiliation thus shows that it is, at its core, the sense of a downward push (Linder, 2000, 2). The term is synonymous with notions such as humiliation, losing face, being made to feel like a fool, feeling foolish, hurt, disgraced, indignity, debased, denigrated, dishonored, disrespected, defamed, humbled, scorned, slighted, slurred, shamed, mortified, rejected , and being laughed at (Klein, 1991: 4). We believe that humiliation is a universal human experience; however, the particularities of this experience can only be understood within the social, cultural, and historical context in which these events occur. Humiliation appears in countless forms. It can be (1) an internal experience (e.g., a feeling, an emotion), (2) an external event (e.g., a degrading interpersonal interaction, bullying, abuse, violent conflict, even genocide), or (3) systemic social conditions (e.g., intractable poverty, discrimination, forced dislocation) ( Hartling, Lindner, Spalthoff and Britton, 2013: 56). Humiliation and responses to humiliation can have destructive implications at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional and international levels. Humiliation takes an active part in a large scope of situations that people encounter during life, from extreme, war related conflicts to ordinary ones (e.g. at work and academic institutes) (Fisk, 2001; Lindner, 2002; Smith, 2001; Uitto, 2011). Because humiliation is believed to be related to anger and aggression, both inward and outward directed, it can lead to retaliation and revengeful behavior, but also to avoidance and withdrawal from the situation (Elison & Harter, 2007; Jackson, 2000; Klein, 1991; Lindner, 2002; Miller, 1988). Humiliation generally leads to unconstructive behaviors to resolve a conflict. This is how humiliation contributes to the enduring nature of conflicts (Goldman & Coleman, 2005; Lindner, 2002). The present research investigated various dimensions of humiliation and social actors in terms of the types of experiences that they consider as examples of humiliation. Methods and Materials Using a qualitative approach, the current study attempted to apply semi-structured interviews with 40 men and women in Tehran in order to examine the perception of participants toward humiliation based on their lived experiences and their narratives. Thematic analysis is the most common form of analysis in such a qualitative research. It emphasizes pinpointing, examining, and recording patterns (or "themes") within the data. Themes are patterns across data sets that are important to the description of a phenomenon and are associated to a specific research question. The themes become the categories for analysis. Thematic analysis is performed through the process of coding in six phases to create established, meaningful patterns. These phases are: familiarization with data, generating initial codes, searching for themes among codes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the final report. The method of analysis should be driven by both theoretical assumptions and research questions and provides a flexible method of data analysis which allows for researchers with various methodological backgrounds to engage in this type of analysis. Reliability with this method is a concern because of the wide variety of interpretations that arise from the themes. In order to Increasing reliability multiple researchers participated in the coding procedure simultaneously. Discussion of Results and Conclusion In terms of the subjective intended meanings of the participants, 4 different types of humiliation are as: (1) goal related, that is, humiliating relationships in which the humilator performs as act of humiliation with a specific goal to scorn the other, (2) power related, which occurs when the victim has a lower status than the humilator. For example, boss in related to his/her staff or teachers in relation with students, (3) neglect related, which is an unintended form of humiliation in which the humilator is actually innocent and the humiliated thinks that humiliation was intentional and (4) dishonored related, when the humilator has been a victim of humiliation somewhere in the past and humiliation occurs as a result of that unpleasant experience. According to the findings extracted from analysis, the examples of humiliations varies on the basis of the goals and the frames in which humiliation occurs. It could be classified in two types including verbal (like applying bad words and mocking) and non-verbal (direct and indirect). Diversity and complexity of interactions among people makes it difficult to provide a comprehensive kind of conceptualization about the concept humiliation. Therefore, findings of this research should be looked upon as just the beginning of a sociological study about humiliation. Keywords: Humiliation, Violence, Qualitative Method

77-90

Authors: mojdeh kiyani , zohreh rahnamafalavarjani

Introduction Increase in educational level, entering into employment, increase in the level of awareness and participation in social life, are factors that cause women to feel and believe that they are on unequal terms with men in society. This feeling can affect social, economic and cultural opportunities to enhance social capital. This study aims at investigating how feeling of gender inequity can affect educated women's social capital in Esfahan. The theoretical variables and parameters of this study have been based on Chafetz's and Bourdieu's theories. Methods and Material The method of this research is survey and its instrument for data collection is a valid and reliable questionnaire which the researcher has designed. The population of the study include women with BA, MA and PH.D degrees in six areas of the fourteen areas of Esfahan city, whose number according to the last consensus is announced as 58,556. Sample size contains 385 people, calculated by Cronbach's alpha formula. In this study, probability sampling method is used. So, 6 of the 14 districts of the city were randomly selected. SPSS software is applied to examine research hypotheses and data analysis is done using correlation coefficients, and regression analysis. The independent variables in this study are felt gender inequality, background variables, and socio- demographic characteristics. Also, the dependent variable is the state of social capital. Discussion of Results and Conclusions Studying women's issues is one of the challenges of women's studies scholars, sociologists and other scholars of the social sciences and humanities. Gender discrimination includes the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and rewards opportunities between women and men in society. The overall feeling is a feeling of unequal gender inequality between men and women, which refers to facilities and opportunities. In an unequal position in social capital, women usually have fewer opportunities to use for their social life. They cannot take advantage of the resources, social mobility processes and career opportunities. Gender segregation in diverse areas of work opportunity and the chance to meet and interact with different people have always been one of the most important issues in women's success stories. Industrialization and modernization increase opportunities for women in education, labor market and social participation. Ignoring women's issues has caused a huge waste of energy and ability of society. This is due to a theory by Chafetz who says the origin of gender inequality is laid in the sense of gender inequality and stereotypical beliefs about women. Also, according to Bourdieu, inequality in society is the product of inequality in access to different types of capital. By examining different aspects of gender inequality in the sense injustice at the highest levels of economic, political and social inequalities, social capital dimensions and components were identified. Dimensions of social trust, social support, and social network, indicated higher levels of social capital among educated women. The results show that there are significant relationships between social inequality and different aspects of social capital. Keywords: Gender Inequity Feeling of Social Inequity, Social Capital Social, Educated Women.

107-124

Authors: omid ghaderzadeh , fatemeh gholami

Introduction Field evidence suggests that fortune-telling has taken a specific gender-based bias and a greater willingness to it among women is seen. Historically, due to the lack of access to resources that would help them to know their identity and, that is, who they are and what they can do, women had been drawn toward the thoughts of fate and destiny. Today, the promotion of women's literacy has put them in slightly different social places, but little or nothing with regard to their willingness to fortune-telling is changed. The data suggests that willingness and interest to fortune-telling is seen even in educated women. Visiting a fortune teller has become a part of the everyday life of married women and young girls in Sanandaj. This problem illustrates the complex and fluid nature of fortune-telling as a cultural and social reality. This research in particular deals with tasseography and palmistry, as they are more popular nowadays. Despite improvement in economic capital, social and cultural rights of women, this problem is more and more significant in Sanandaj. It has turned into a daily activity for a part of Kurdish women. The number of fortune-telling centers in the city reveals an increasingly popular social demand for this type of activity. Therefore, this research aims to qualitatively study the causes, contexts and consequences of fortune-telling among women in Sanandaj. Materials and Methods The method used in this research is qualitative approach, which is appropriate to examine issues such as this because we need a profound understanding of the complexities, details and context of the phenomenon. Fortune-telling is such a complex, multi-dimensional and diverse phenomenon, which means it has many obscure and unknown aspects, and there are many components and elements consisting fortune-telling as a social problem. Among the various methods that can be used for a qualitative research, we utilized grounded theory (GT), which is based on the discovery of theory from data. Thus, unlike methods that focus primarily on the evidence of hypotheses and theoretical propositions, this approach emphasizes the generation of theory. During the course of this research, we visited 12 fortune-telling centers in Sanandaj and gathered data by conducting in-depth interviews. Snow balling sampling is used for selecting interviewees and theoretical sampling was used for recognizing the number of cases needed to be interviewed. Participants in the research were women of 21 to 38 years old who went to one of the aforementioned fortune-telling centers. After conducting 25 in-depth interviews, theoretical saturation was attained. However, to make sure, interviews continued up to 30 cases. According to the grounded theory method of coding, we used 3 stages of open coding, axial coding and selecting coding to analyze the data. Discussion of Results and Conclusions In this research, it is tried to understand fortune-telling as a social phenomenon by emphasizing women's experiences and perceptions, conditions and circumstances. According to the results it can be said that interest of women in fortune-telling stems from specific conditions, which are categorized in 3 types of causative, contextual and intervening conditions. The results indicated that women respond to loneliness and lack of social support by going to fortune-telling, which they see as a womanly routine. Here, gender stereotypes and individualization of religion act as contextual conditions and modernization of fortune telling acts as an intervening condition to encourage woman to this activity. Women also experienced fortune-telling in terms of its functions, including troubleshooting, leisure, a friendly resort, a method of channeling anger for rethinking. The followings are mentioned as the most important consequences of visiting fortune-tellers: mental drain, developing a metaphysical approach to life, developing a lifestyle of cynicism, becoming remorseful, and social isolation. Keywords: Grounded Theory, Fortune-Felling (Divination), Woman s life Insecurity, Sanandaj

141-158

Authors: Arman Heidari

Introduction Health could be studied from different scientific perspectives. From a sociological point of view, health is defined more as feeling healthy rather than the absence of any diseases. In addition, in the sociological empirical and theoretical literature, social capital has been introduced as one of the most important social factors that influence the health of individuals. Social capital as a multidimensional and multilevel construction has been defined differently within and between scientific disciplines. In this study, on the basis of definitions provided by Shefell, Shah and Putnam, the researcher has investigated the relationship between social capital and feeling healthy among married individuals in Yasouj city, with self-esteem as a mediating variable. Materials & Methods Two important kinds of structural and cognitive social capitals have been noticed in examining the relationship between social capital and feeling healthy. The more important fact about the mechanism of the relationship between social capital and feeling healthy is that according to most theorists and researchers the effect of social capital on health is indirect and is mediated by variables such as self–esteem, as far as this effect is considered very more important than its direct effect. The research has done with the aid of survey–cross sectional method and the data has collected through an instrument of self-reported health questionnaire‏ that included 6-items of Spitzor et al, and Patient Health Questionnaire measurement. Lin's formula was used to determine sample size and on this basis 400 married men and women of Yasouj city were determined as the sample of the research. The sampling method was classified- quota- random method. Discussion of Results & Conclusions Data analysis shows that variables such as social satisfaction, self-esteem, social support, religious participation, interaction with relatives, relationship with friends, and periodical visits to acquaintances had positive and significant correlations with the feeling of being healthy, respectively. The three variables of social satisfaction, self-esteem, and relationship with friends could explain 17 percent of the variance of respondents’ sense of health. With respect to the mechanism of the effect of social capital on the sense of health, it could be said that the structural dimension of the social capital, by means of its effects on the cognitive dimension, and the two dimensions together influence individuals’ sense of health through the mediation of psychological processes. Based on the results, we can say that the effect of quality of social relationships on feeling healthy has been very important than its quantity; even some of the relationships (such as neighborhood relationships), because of being stressful, could result in damage to the individual’s well-being. Finally, in respect to the causal and logical relationships between dimensions of social capital and self-esteem with feeling healthy, it seems more correct to assume that the structural aspects of social capital (objective and quantitative relationships) could increase feeling of being healthy only if they lead to qualitative improvement of the cognitive aspects (especially life satisfaction) and these two aspects interact with each other by promoting individual’s self-esteem. Thus, it could be said the prevalent assumption that consider the relationship between social capital and feeling healthy as a inevitable positive relationship must be revised and replaced by the conditional assumption that these relationships increase feeling of being healthy if only they could improve individual’s life satisfaction and self-esteem. Keywords: Social Capital, Cognitive and Structural Dimensions, Self-Esteem, Yasouj, Sense of Health

181-196

Authors: Mohammad Mehdi Tavakoli , Ali Nasr Esfahani, Hadi Shirouyehzad , Saeid Jafari

Introduction Several studies have identified the need to managing human capital and considered it as a competitive advantage for organizations. They expressed that one way of gaining organization competitive advantage is through considering human capital. On the other hand, one of the ways that causes human capital to implement their ability to advance the organization goals is organizational commitment. Organizational commitment can make employees to be committed towards the organization. Materials & Methods Foolad Technic Engineering was selected as a case study. Human capital management level and organizational commitment level were evaluated by Bassi and McMurrer HCM questionnaire and Porter organizational commitment questionnaire. Thus, a questionnaire was prepared and confirmed by academic experts in the human capital management field. To calculate to questionnaire reliability, Cronbach alpha was used which its value was 0.95 for the total questionnaire and due to the fact that Cronbach alpha coefficient was higher than 70% we can say it has an acceptable reliability. In the next step, HCM and organizational commitment were analyzed with statistical and correlation tests and in the end, an empirical model was proposed by path analyze that showed relationships between variables. Discussion of Results & Conclusions The results showed that knowledge accessibility practice with an average of 3.48 is considered at a top level among other practices. Also, the level of organizational commitment with the average of 3.503 is desirable. Pearson correlation test results showed that learning capacity practice has the highest correlation with organizational commitment. In the end, results of multivariate regression and path analyze showed that learning capacity and employees' engagement have direct impacts on organizational commitment. According to the results, the following are recommended: researchers in future studies can use a combination of multi-basis human capital models. Also, for future studies, other advantages of investing on human capital management such as employees' engagement in decision making, and group work can be used as dependent variables. Keywords: Human Capital Management, Organizational Commitment, Intellectual Capital.