gholam -abbas tavassoli

This paper is to investigate the sociological aspects of the formation and development of global citizenship in young people. The statistical population is all of young students in Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch of Tehran that 280 students were selected as statistical sample.
In theoretical foundations have been used related theories to this field and at the end of the research theoretical model has been designed. This research has been done using field studies and survey method. The data gathering tool was a researcher made questionnaire and distributed to respondents after validation and reliability estimation. The result shows that there are significant relationship between the experience of globalization, tourism, civil participation, social skills and educational environment, and the formation and expansion of global citizenship as dependent variables.
But there are no significant relationship between national media and formation and development of global citizenship. Using the lisrel Structural Equation Model, among all these factors, it was found that social skills, civic participation and globalization experience are three factors that had the greatest impact. It was found that all these three factors: social skills, civil participation and experience are of greatest impact in globalization. But, in the meantime, civil partnership has most influential in formation and expanding the global citizenship of young people.

Social capital and its major components and dimensions are related to social values, norms, institutions, and performances of activists and its improvement depends on factors that can lead to the development and expansion of social trust, participation, and unity. The development and spread of social perspectives, values, and norms can create social constructs that lead to social capital and in that way cause the improvement and development in any society. One of these ways is the mass media and how to make use of them. Some scholars believe that together with the spread of communication technologies and their use in Iran, the awareness and general knowledge of the youth has increased rapidly and has led to a cultural development and consequently to the increase of the social capital. Some others have pointed to the reduction of social interactions among the youth and the flow of information in a society being one-way and consider them as the cause of reduction in the social unity within any society. Some sociologists consider mass media as the cause of a permanent social trust (Coleman, 1999). Others believe that it is a tool to dominate masses culturally through turning it into a cultural industry (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2002 Ritzer, 1996). Horkheimer and Adorno in their article titled, “Culture Industry” argue that, “Nowadays, culture influences everything. The TV, cinema, and publications have established a system that is unified, exactly like a whole. Obviously, culture has been turned into an industry and follows the rules of production in the market (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2002). In their view, this industry tries to change the satisfaction of the audience and in this way provide for their needs to have fun and hubbies. In addition, Ritzer considers the culture industry to be “logical and bureaucratized constructs” (like television channels) which influence culture (Ritzer, 1996). Robert Putnam has used the concept of social capital in relation to the studies on social communication in the U.S. The main theme of his work on American society was that after 1960, it has shown a uniform trend towards isolation from the social life. He considers mass media as one of the major reasons for such a phenomenon. The subject of his study was the lack of social capital in the U.S., which is related to the fears, and hopes of many people. His studies have attracted the attention of many experts, policy makers, and even a large number of young people. Putnam considers social capital as good and lack of it as bad and calls for actions to restore societies to health. He believes that the growing number of media technologies especially that of television is the main reason of laziness among Americans. In Putnam’s view, television is the main reason of Americans’ isolation and reduction of social capital through the disconnection of social interactions. He thinks that watching TV has not replaced social interactions and has not led to inner satisfaction among Americans since he believes that those who watch many television programs despise it gradually and enjoy less (Field, 2008). Putnam argues that spending time on social media especially television prevents human beings from thinking about serious social issues. Examples of reduction in the rate of involvement in voluntary activities and helping those in need originates from the excessive attraction of the youth towards television and radio programs and the Internet. It seems that what the media transfer to the youth reflects the point that what image do we have of ourselves as citizens (Field, 2008). Thus the purpose of this paper is to study the impact that TV programs and Satellite channels have on social capital among students. Survey research has been used in the current study in order to collect data. The data required for the evaluation of the rate of students’ use of domestic news from internal TV and the effects of the rate of media consumption and media consumption patterns on their social capital were collected using questionnaire. In order to determine the validity of this instrument, face validity assessment, test-retest method, and established measures were applied. In order to assess the reliability of the instrument, Cronbach's Alpha was used. Based on this analysis, the reliability of the questionnaire of subjective social capital was determined as 0.852 and the reliability of the questionnaire of objective social capital was determined as 0.824. The research population consisted of all the students studying in state universities in the city of Tabriz during 2011-2012. The sample size is consisted of 381 students, chosen based on stratified random sampling method.Discussion of Results & The testing of the first hypothesis reveals that the ordinary viewers of TV programs do have a higher degree of social capital compared with the high-consumption group of viewers. The reason for this might be originated from people’s detachment from the realities within a society that are happening in a daily fashion and can be effective in forming one’s thoughts, opinions, and socials activities. The high-consumption viewers loose themselves in the world of visual media and movies and other programs. So become unable to demonstrate a whole picture of the realities of a society and because of their limitations, are only able to picture a part of social realities that are objective and can be pictures. With regard to satellite channels, since the majority of the viewers watch Persian-language programs and the managers of those channels have their own underlying political aims, by which they only portrait a part of realities in Iranian society on various social, cultural, and political aspects that are in line with their own goals, thus the viewers are integrated into a world that is made up for them and become detached from the realities of their own social environment, alienated from their surrounding society. Those who make use of several media such as the Internet, satellite, and newspapers put a low trust in news that is broadcasted from domestic television while those who use domestic television and radio agree more with that. The reason for people to watch the programs of satellite TV might be due to a compensatory approach and complementing their information and knowledge in the combination of the programs in domestic TV with the programs of satellite channels. When audiences face the programs of other media, their attitudes and mentality becomes influenced, too. Maybe this is the reason for the lower trust of the users of the Internet, newspapers, and satellite in the perspectives that are presented on domestic TV on various issues.

The study of design and formation of urban space focuses on interaction of human and environment. This is an attractive subject that considers as interdisciplinary debates. Thinkers of urban studies pay attention to this matter empirically and theoretically in order to provide a desirable space for human being. This research is based on the theories of urban studies and urban sociology and so on. The purpose of this research is the sociological explanation of sustainability of urban space. This is a survey research and data is collected through questionnaires distributed among 470 persons based on Cochran `s formula in Tehran`s 1,6,22 city districts which taken from household residing in Tehran`s 22 city district and were selected through cluster sampling- multi stage. Findings show that significant difference exists in sustainability of urban space among Tehran`s city districts as this level in no.22 is more than the others and in two other districts are partly the same .Testing hypotheses indicates that there is a significant relationship between social and cultural factors and socio-economic status of household residing in Tehran (given districts) with sustainability of urban space. It means that attention to human needs in design of urban space leads to the improvement of quality of urban environment and consequently effects on sustainability of urban space. Also the results of the multi-variable regression test with stepwise method show dependent variable of sustainability of urban space. Totally, variables such cultural factors, social factors and socio-economic status have more effects on sustainability of urban space. Finally, these variables explain 0/47 percent of dependent variable.

The purpose of this article is to study the prevalence of cosmetic surgery among women in Tehran and to determine factors influencing women toward such surgeries. The study was conducted via survey research method using the questionnaire as the data gathering technique. This research through the questionnaire examined 426 females residing in Tehran. The findings show that about 15 percent of the respondents have had cosmetic surgery of some kind. Most of the women were under 35 years of age، single،college-educated at the B. A. level، and of the middle class. The majority of the women expressed that their main motivation for going through these operations was to enhance their beauty as a factor for upgrading the self-confidence. The willingness to be operated on was affected by individual characteristics as well as by the influence exerted from outside. So that the number of singles، with higher education، those who hadnegative body image، and who had lower self-esteem was greater compared to other groups. Among other influential factors persuading women toward cosmetic surgery were: the family and friends، relatives، spouses، doctors، TV، and the satellite channels. The following characteristics were irrelevant: age، employment، class base، life satisfaction، religious beliefs، and attitudes.

This article discusses the democratization of access to higher education opportunities in Iran. Access to educational opportunities was studied through exploring the scores the national university entrance exams. The main research question was: "How the inequality in access to higher education opportunities is explained?" To solve this problem, we constructed a theoretical model on the basis of capital theory: Access to higher educational opportunities is the function of modernization of parents’ economic and cultural capital. The results showed that cultural capital weight in access to educational opportunities, is more than that of economic capital.

Theory of decline of political thought in Iran is one of the highest contemporary theories because of its relationship with the development and its problems in Iran. Tabatabai is the author of such acclaimed books as Philosophical Introduction to the History of Political Thought in Iran; Decline of Political Thought in Iran; Essay on Ibn- Khaldun: Impossibility of Social Sciences in Islam, Nizam al-Mulk and Iranian Political Thought: Essay on the Continuity of the Iranian Thought. This article tries to study about theory of decline of political thought that includes following subtitles: Problem statement of decline thought, methodological approach, historical signs theory, the ways of deliverance, Positive and negative analyzes of theory, critics, and conclusions.

The Constitution of Islamic republic of Iran approved by a great number of Islamic scholars and scientists states a clear and obvious definition of social politics. So, having a general review of it will give us enough information about a collection of social policies which are accepted by religious scientists. Even the changes in this concept regarding the social policy fields and it’s comparison with religious sources will emphasize their consistency toward social welfare and democracy in Islamic society. In this article, the writer has drawn the social policies framework according to Islam history and the documents of our prophrt, Muhammad’s. Living Style (Peace be upon him), and refrences to some other books and sources.