Evaluating the formation process of free-thinking chairs, A Case Study (Islamic Azad Universities of Khuzestan province): A Qualitative Research

The study and concern of the establishment of free-thinking chairs in universities is a strategic issue that the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei) emphatically and strongly raised in his meetings with university students and professors, but it has not been implemented as it should be. The main purpose of this research is to analyze the formation process of free-thinking chairs of a case study (Islamic Azad Universities of Khuzestan province). The current research method is a qualitative study using the researcher's Grounded Theory. The researcher conducted an in-depth interview with 14 elites, specialists and experts related to free thinking chairs in universities until the data saturation process continued. Findings based on Triple coding steps (Open coding, axial coding and Selective coding), showed that 78 corresponding concepts were extracted that have a conceptual relationship with each other; and the results of this research showed that the components of ethnicity, sense of security, religiosity and religious values, social trust, social participation, socioeconomic status, internal mass media, which were extracted in a qualitative method, all have a direct and meaningful relationship with the formation process of free-thinking chairs in the free universities of Khuzestan province. Keywords: free-thinking chairs, Supreme Leader, sense of security, religiosity and religious values, qualitative research method