جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "covid-19 pandemic" در نشریات گروه "علوم اجتماعی"

Nearly four years elapsed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the pandemic outbreak in Iran and the consequent closure of educational institutions, a shift to virtual learning was adopted nationwide. This study examines the dual nature of the educational system's shift to virtual space, analyzing both the opportunities and challenges presented during the pandemic. 

Methods and Data: 

This study employed a qualitative approach, based on the grounded theory, and used semi-structured interviews for data collection. The targeted population of the research included two junior high schools within Qods township, Tehran province. Data gathering proceeded through purposive sampling and continued until theoretical saturation was achieved.

The study revealed several challenges to virtual education, including 'inadequate virtual infrastructure', 'insufficient student supervision in virtual classrooms', 'student disparities', 'academic underachievement', 'psychological insecurity', 'diminished student motivation', and 'rising instances of depression and social isolation'. Conversely, the research identified key opportunities such as 'enhanced media literacy', 'global cultural exposure', and 'the extensive adoption of virtual learning by educational institutions'.

The findings suggest that while the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the educational skills and experiences of all beneficiaries, it has simultaneously led to physical and psychological harm, educational failure, and professional exhaustion. The primary policy recommendation is to acknowledge and promote the advantages of virtual education, while reducing its weaknesses to enhance educational justice within the country.  

Key Message: 

With careful planning and resource management, virtual education can complement traditional classroom learning by overcoming time and space barriers, promoting justice in education. It allows for the lessons of expert teachers to be recorded and revisited by students, thus improving overall learning accessibility and opportunities.

The current era has faced COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, with novel and far-reaching risks, such as experiencing risky jobs and livelihood situations. Iranian people have also experienced these conditions in a special way in their family, economic, and work conditions and have had different reactions accordingly. The experience of exposure to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is one of the concepts related to the citizens' lived experiences of social vulnerability in the era of COVID-19. It is very important to examine these experiences because it determines the citizens’ backgrounds and contexts of social vulnerability. After the discovery of the virus in Iran and its spread, each citizen has faced it in a special way and tried to manage it. Although there may be various and sometimes different forms of this encounter, it is possible to extract a common lived experience among the citizens in this field. This research examined their common lived experiences in the face of COVID-19. This study was conducted with the aim of studying and discovering the social activists’ experiences of living with the conditions of the corona crisis and providing a thick description of their experiences. The main questions addressed in this study were as follows: "What were the citizens' lived experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic? What understanding and interpretation did the citizens have about facing the COVID-19 pandemic? What strategies had citizens used to deal with and face the COVID-19 pandemic? And how had they adapted themselves to these conditions?

The qualitative method of "phenomenology" was used in this study and an in-depth semi-structured interview was used to collect the data. The city of Isfahan was studied as the research field. In this study, the statistical population included all the young and middle-aged people, both men and women, who were preferably born in the city of Isfahan or had lived in this city for at least 20 years. 30 citizens were selected by using purposive sampling for the in-depth semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed by using Colaizzi's 7-step method (1978). This analysis was done to reach descriptive, interpretative, and explanatory codes. 

According to the participants, the spread of the coronavirus had suspended parts of social life and intensified the panic in the layers of the activists' minds. The crisis caused by the corona had been so widespread that a form of public panic and general fear had been formed in the society and challenged the citizens’ initial contacts. Part of this public fear originated from the ambiguity and mystery of Corona. Therefore, it could be claimed that its spread, like any other crisis, had caused a change in fundamental attitudes towards oneself, others, and the world. The participants of this research believed that Corona had reminded them of their vulnerabilities more than ever and in this way increased the media, as well as their economic and social fears. How do citizens try to manage their fears and anxieties in the face of COVID-19? Coping shows the state of social, cognitive, and emotional actions of a person in facing stressful elements and the resulting consequences. According to the analysis of the citizens' lived experiences, they used various techniques to deal with Covid-19 and manage their exposures to this disease.These techniques included compliance with medical instructions, observance of health protocols, and "coronavirus protocol". It can be accompanied by "Normalization of COVID-19" or "Religionization of Exposure to COVID-19" for some citizens. The people had to know that they were forced to cope with the corona situation.This result was consistent with the theory of Elrich Beck (1992) and Anthony Giddens (2015). The spread of corona virus was considered as a global risk and one of the consequences of modernity. It had certain psychological and sociological effects. The common concepts of safety and security are degraded from a sociological point of view and anxiety and insecurity become a complete part of modern conditions from the psychological point of view. In fact, according to the results of the research on the spread of the coronavirus, a high-risk society leads to the creation of a vulnerable society.

The present research, using a qualitative approach, tries to examine the shaping components of unfinished mourning during the covid-19 pandemic in the city of Sanandaj. To achieve this goal, the concepts of worry, guilt, meaningful-meaningless death confrontation, the mental suffering of victims’ families and discourse were used as a conceptual framework. In the field study, the postmodern grounded theory was used whereas the data were gathered through in-depth qualitative interviews. Samples were selected through the purposive sampling method with the maximum variety and finally 15 participants were interviewed and the collected data were coded and analyzed in the form of eleven central categories. The results show that unfinished mourning are formed under the influence of spatial, technological, therapeutic-health, psychological, organizational-medical, social, cultural, discursive, philosophical-ideological and bureaucratic regulation components; in a way that the medical discourse, by shaping the laws of organizations and institutions such as cemeteries, hospitals and public places, causes the non-performance of burial rituals, funerals, obituaries, compliance with health protocols, drug consumption, avoidance of relatives and neighbors and family tensions.  In turn, it has led to the feeling of emptiness, meaninglessness of life, delaying relief and finally, the persistent grief of mourners. Therefore, the mourners’ experience during the pandemic is the experience of connection with the medical discourse and the social space, meaning that our social world can only be understood in the form of discourse.

Rumors spread in critical situations and cause trouble for the society. The Covid-19 pandemic, as a global crisis, also led to various rumors in Iran. This disease started in China in 2019 and spread all over the world in a short period of time. The purpose of this study is to analyze the content of rumors that have been published during the Covid-19 epidemic in Iran. The research method is qualitative content analysis. For this purpose, the rumors published in ISNA and IRNA from the beginning of the disease outbreak until the official announcement of its vaccine production and injection were identified. First, all the rumors were reviewed, and then the most relevant ones were selected and the content was analyzed using the MaxQda. The published rumors were identified in 9 main categories and 18 sub categories. Nine main groups of rumors were: rumors related to the virus, disease prevention, treatment and control of the disease, mortality rate and dead people, outbreaks and infections, close and reopening of various places, government actions, access to various goods and more rumors. Rumors were spread due to factors such as fear, pessimism, curiosity, wishful thinking, deception, and economy, which had many impacts on people and society. Rumor coping strategies were based on two strategies of denial and retrieval. Based on the general trend of the categories, it can be said that the rumors were not an unusual reaction of the society to the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was a natural reaction to a completely unknown and deadly disease that targeted the physical and mental health of the society.

Virtual education has brought both opportunities and challenges for education during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a different condition in exceptional education which calls for identifying its different dimensions and coordinating a policy-making necessity for education. The purpose of this research is to analyze the issue from the perspective of exceptional education managers in Yazd province. 

Methods and Data: 

The present research is a qualitative study that was conducted in 1400 in Yazd province. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 32 principals of exceptional schools and analyzed by thematic analysis method. 

Data analysis showed that virtual education in exceptional schools is accompanied by challenges and opportunities. The most important issue at the beginning of the epidemic was the lack of preparation of managers and teachers in facing the new conditions, which was accompanied by serious pressures and concerns at the individual and institutional levels. Over time, the problem has been managed leading to the creation of opportunities. The four themes analyzed are: job pressures, crisis unpreparedness, challenges, and positive consequences. 

Creating the necessary infrastructure for virtual education and increasing the media literacy of managers and teachers in this field is one of the needs of exceptional education. It is suggested to pay attention to the special needs of managers and teachers of exceptional schools compared to similar groups in normal schools. A return to non-pandemic conditions should not be considered as a complete abandonment of the opportunities that virtual education has brought. 

Key Message:

 Virtual education has provided many opportunities for students with special needs. It is recommended that special education managers pay attention to this issue and promote it. Paying attention to educational inequalities in this field should be a priority.

As an unprecedented crisis, the Corona virus outbreak has upset many current aspects of human life in a very sudden and widespread way. This highly contagious disease, more than any other epidemic, has various cultural and social consequences, affecting all aspects of social life. This study examines the social factors that influence how people cope with Covid-19 disease. The study focuses on religiosity and social indifference as social components that influence people’s response to Covid-19 in the dimensions of behavior, emotion, and attitude. The theoretical framework of the present paper is based on religious coping theory, according to which religious people face human crises in a wiser and more relaxed manner. According to the religious rationalism approach, religious tendencies play an effective role in shaping people’s responsible behavior in the face of Covid-19 disease. This study was conducted by using a survey in which data were collected by a questionnaire. The statistical population of this study was all people living in Tehran city, and 300 people were selected as the research sample by a cluster method appropriate to the size. The method consisted of first considering each of the 22 districts of Tehran as a cluster. Then, according to the population of each cluster, a number of areas were randomly selected from each of them. Finally, blocks were randomly selected in the selected areas, and within each block, a number of households were selected using a simple random sampling method. In the sample selection, the percentage of randomly selected individuals from each group was equal to the percentage of the same group in the target population. The results show that most of the respondents, 34.4%, have a college degree and most of them, about 30%, are students. Regarding the context variables, there is no significant relationship between the “Facing the COVID -19” index and the marital status of the individuals. Of course, women are slightly more likely than men to follow health tips and social distance. On the other hand, there is a significant relationship between this index and the level of education; that is, as the level of education increases, people show better behavior toward coronary disease. The average value of the “Facing the COVID -19” index is 4, which means that the respondents largely follow the health recommendations. The mean score of the sample population for “religiosity” is 3.48, indicating a relatively high level of religiosity. The percentage of “social indifference” in the sample is almost low. Thus, 46.2% of individuals have low indifference and 19.8% have very low indifference. The results of the multivariate regression test show that there is a significant relationship between the index “Facing the COVID-19” and independent variables in different dimensions (R = 0.427). The results of this study show that there is an indirect relationship between “social indifference” and “Facing the COVID-19” (B = -0.268); when social indifference increases among people, they follow less health advice. “Religiosity” also has a direct effect on the management of Covid-19 disease (B = 0.242), such that religious people try more than others to show responsible behavior in dealing with this disease. Two main research hypotheses were confirmed. According to them, the strongest significant relationship between “Facing the COVID-19” and independent variables is associated with the “social indifference” index (r = -0.365). This shows that with the increase of social indifference among people in society, the level of compliance with health protocols among them has decreased and these people act more negligence in the face of corona. On the other hand, by decreasing indifference and increasing social responsibility, people will be more reasonable and responsible to corona disease. On the other hand, there is a significant positive correlation between Facing the COVID-19 and religiosity (r = 0.347). This finding confirms another hypothesis of the study and shows that religious people follow the principles of social distancing more than others. The higher people’s religiosity, the better they behave in terms of health advice during corona outbreak.

The main purpose of this study is to identify strategies to increase the production of cooperatives in Khuzestan province during the corona outbreak. In this research, with regard to the research topic, the qualitative method and interpretive structural modeling approach have been used. The participants of the present study were 45 key informants in Khuzestan province in 2020. In the present study, semi-structured interview technique was used to collect data and purposive sampling was used to select cases. The results of the present study showed that in the period of corona outbreak, the production status of production cooperatives in Khuzestan province is moderate for the majority of interviewees (56.6%). The results of structural analysis using Mick Mac software showed that from the perspective of experts, the most important strategies to increase the production of cooperatives in Khuzestan province in the pavilion period of Covid 19 include 1. Correct understanding of market and customer needs 3. Teaching cooperatives new production and sales methods 3. Strategic planning in cooperatives 4. Use of new sales and marketing methods 5. Supply chain efficiency 6. Home business development 7. Government support for production and business environment 8. Business flexibility and innovation in production program 9. Working capital management 10. Trust and belief in the capabilities of cooperatives 11. Paying attention to the comparative advantages in forming a cooperative 12. Advertising and gaining customer trust Production activities, its maintenance and promotion 14. Cooperation and cooperation between departments 15. Comprehensive maintenance and promotion of human resources in production units 16. Acting on the approvals of the Facilitation and Corona headquarters.

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the policy impact of health researches in the field of COVID-19 with an Altmetrics approach, and other objectives of the study include the study of the popularity of this subject in social media, governance systems and policy documents that have benefited from these studies, their thematic dimensions, and the policy impact of COVID-19 clinical trial researches. This was applied research conducted using altmetric, and content analysis indicators. Based on the above, all the researches of COVID-19 in Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane was extracted and observed in the Altmetrics database which returned 4308 researches in COVID-19. 95% of COVID-19 research was mentioned on Twitter. Among them, %0.01 referred to policy documents, of which %45 were related to Switzerland and %36.6 to the United States. Seven of these were conducted as a clinical trial. Topics covered in policy documents of COVID-19 included public health services, clinical sciences, and medical microbiology. Using altmetric and web metrics are useful in tracking the cultural, social, and policy dimensions of researches and monitoring user interactions on social media, especially Twitter, which is an attractive media for academic and non-academic users in a wide range of medical sciences. Moreover, the mentions of these researches in policy documents, in such a short time, express the importance of them at the high policymaking levels of countries, specifically those in clinical trials.

In this paper, I aim to shed light on the cultural consequences and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Iranian society. After a short introduction about the purpose and leading questions of the article, I will seek to delineate "the problematization of culture in Iran", and deal with this problem that how Iranians' collective mind, influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, has become more conscious and sensitive inspiring them to question taken-for-granted cultural matters. Then I will commit myself to characterize three discourses that have addressed the probable cultural impacts of this pandemic situation on Iranian society, including the discourses of "continuity", "discontinuity", and "critical rethinking”. My approach to the current pandemic situation is in the same vein with the critical rethinking discourse. I will put forward this viewpoint that the Coronavirus crisis has given us a great opportunity to critically revisit and reconsider our ways of life and this reconsideration will be continued regardless of its objective effects on the society’s structures. My methodology approach in this article is mainly based on discourse analysis. Theoretical and conceptual analysis is a strategy to understand available discourses about the cultural effects of the Corona Virus. I will also include my personal intuitions drawn from my lived experiences.