A Qualitative Study of Education of Sociology in Iran

This study concerns the situation of sociology education in Iran from the phenomenology point of view. The question is: “what is the role of sociology education in the current situation of Iran?” In this research, we tried to categorize different influential reasons on conditions of sociology and after demonstrating the importance of the teaching, we straight to the reality of sociology education without any postulated approach. The methodology is grounded theory which lets us look at this subject from a phenomenological approach. The first step is to refer to the involved actors in the education process to explain the reality as they are experiencing and living it. This plan is made by interviewing 7professors and 15students from 3universities in Iran and also by the results of other research. These interviews are taken in open and semi-open techniques, which provided us a level of reality based on the life-world of actors, the consciousness of sociology teaching, classes, and the university environment. The sample size was chosen based on theoretical saturation. To analyze data, an open and axial codification was done, and by specifying central categories, the authors reached a conceptual ordering and a description of the current situation of sociology teaching.