فصلنامه جامعه شناسی کاربردی
سال سی و یکم شماره 1 (پیاپی 77، بهار 1399)

 Cancer is a global risk for human in all contemporary societies and have multiple faces. The cancer diagnosis has variant effects on the patient and relatives. These include emotional, social, relational, economic, and mental effects. Cancer affects the patient and also, the patient’s partner, children, extended family, friends, and entire network of support. But, patients and relatives response and adjust themselves by the new situation and its challenges. They attempt for managing the condition and come over to challenges. In this process, different actions and interactions occur. Family and social relations are sources of support for patients and can be challenging simultaneously. The purpose of this study was to explore the interpretations of cancer patients about the relations in family and community after diagnosis.

This is an interpretative-qualitative research and was conducted by the Basic Qualitative Research Method (Merriam, 2009). We used this method because we was interested in understanding how patients interpret their experiences and what meaning they attribute to their experiences about cancer. Our research participants was 17 cancer patients who had spent treatment time in hospitals of Ahwaz city. The data gathered through semi-structured and in-depth interviews. Accordingly, purposeful sampling method was used. Data saturation criteria used for deciding sample size, and we continued the process of sampling until we founded the answers became repetitive and no new concept could be created. Before starting the interviews, we collected participant patients consent. The participants became familiar with the research procedure through the explanation of the research purposes and methods. Theoretical coding (Strause & Corbin, 1998) was utilized for data analysis. During the open coding, interview texts were encoded line by line. While in axial coding, they were put together and transformed into categories. We tried to achieve a level of credibility in research findings by continuous comparison of participants’ statements and paying attention to their feedbacks to the analysis.

After each interview, we transcribed the interview. The coding process started after 2nd interviews and continued to end of the data collection. Transcripts coded in initial phase line by line and the meaningful concepts were constructed. Each text was coded by one of the authors and was checked by the other one. In first phase of coding, 50 concepts and 6 categories were emerged. After merging the main categories, Fluctuate accommodation was emerged as the main phenomenon (core category) in the findings. The findings showed that participants experienced ups and downs in regulating their relationships, and their interactions underwent many changes after diagnosis. The specific conditions of the diagnosis, along with the difficulty of regulating their relationships, make their life different. Patients and their family encounter many fluctuations and challenges that encourage them to have strategies to cope with diagnosis. Usually, the onset of a disease is associated with inappropriate physical conditions and unknown symptoms, which is a prelude to a special experience. Therefore, a new form of relationship is formed between the patient and his relatives. In this new situation, family members become closer than ever and try to return the emotional energy to patient. So, they adopt themselves to the new situation in various ways. One of their most important concerns in such situation is how to control the situation, the unknown status of the new situation, and the fear of personal and social changes. The specificity of experiencing cancer on the one hand, and the lack of familiarity of the people on the other hand, increase the need for educating people. As cancer can affect every individual from any family and it is not particularly specific, how to deal with the disease during the post-exposure period is very important. Research findings suggest that some kind of cultural review is needed while facing cancer. Modifying negative behavior and ill-considered misconceptions about the disease are also needed to better respond to the illness and reduce stress and mental harm to patients.

The women suffering from breast cancer can narrate their life experiences of the disease in cyberspace. They can also turn it into a platform on which they can express and reveal their identity, in addition to reading and writing about the disease. For women, cyberspace has been transformed into a place where they discover their new identity through interaction and giving it a new meaning. They use stories of the disease to rebuild the world of shattered daily life in order to show who they were and who they are. Due to the wide spread of breast cancer among Iranian women especially for the decreasing age of cancer incidents in our country, this illness has received considerable attention. The purpose of the present study is to find out how women with breast cancer use new information networks in the process of understanding and experiencing their disease, and in particular how the patients explain and interpret themselves, their own relationships, and post-illness issues by using these tools.

After a preliminary study, the research was conducted at two hospitals, Shahid Ghazi and Tabriz International Hospital. We visited women suffering from breast cancer, while at the same time they used the new electronic media to cope with their problem, to define their own identity after illness, to create new relationships and social participation, and to receive information. For this purpose, we conducted qualitative interviews based on Grounded Theory with 20 patients about the understanding and experience of the disease and about how they use the virtual world. To analyze these interviews, the basic research codes which actually constitute the main concepts of the study, were identified and named by coding method in the first stage. The following categories were extracted in the second stage: 1- experiencing and defining the disease, 2- identifying aware and empowered patients, 3- contrasting information networks, and 4- signifying thier own identity in virtual space.

By analyzing and describing these categories, we find out that the patients experience major mental and psychological changes that lead to their deep distress. Thus, it creates the new needs for them after the illness and especially after amputation. One of the most important tools that can meet these needs today is an electronic network or cyberspace. Cyberspace is a place where a world of relationships and information on any subject is accessible at any moment. Among the issues available in this space, there are issues related to the body, diseases and the medical field. Information is very essential in order to empower patients. Researchers believe that along with technology advances, we are witnessing the emergence of a new consumer health identity which is called online self-helper. These new identities having access to information, especially through the internet and new technologies, are big steps towards taking responsibility for their own health. By exploring and being active in this space, patients show that they have become active, aware, and empowered actors in this field and wanted to gain control and power over their bodies, not merely being passive observers. The social networks, on the other hand, have the potential to bring people together and create new individual and collective identities through interaction and dialogue. When a patient's reflective writings about herself are digitally discussed in a program, self-expression, self-disclosure, and the relationships created in a social group greatly help a patient to manage her health and accept and cope with the new identity. In sum, the results show that the new information technology is increasingly becoming an area where women with breast cancer not only receive information about their illness but also create narratives about breast cancer. Women with breast cancer are deeply interested in defining their identity and empowerment; therefore, they use cyberspace as an area to create new forms of knowledge, awareness, and functionality in relation to the disease.

The patient relationship model contains a range of relationships that starts from dominating patient and ends in patient’s actively engagement in his/her relation to the doctor. The kind of the relationship that the patient has to do with the doctor can have positive and negative consequences depending on the form (shape) of that relationship. For example, establishing an active relationship has "an important role in the relationship between physician and patient which causes the confidence between the patient and the physician and increases the patient’s confidence level to the physician, adherence to recommendations and their consent". (Ohtaki and et al. 2003).

The aim of this study was to investigate the dominant pattern of patient relationship among patients with cancer, neurology and cardiology in Rasht city and the relationship between this variable and social capital. According to the purpose of this research, it was conducted using a sectional-descriptive method. To collect data and measure the main variables of research, standard questionnaires have been used. To measure the variable of social capital, the social capital standard questionnaire of Onix and Boulen (2000) is used, which has eight dimensions: participation in the local community, social agency, sense of security and trust, interactions with neighbors, interactions with family and friends, tolerance of diversity, value of life, and job interactions. To measure the variable of patient relationship, the standard questionnaire of the patient communication pattern scale of Ilan and Carmel (2015) is used which has five dimensions: relaying clear information about the illness and symptoms, questioning and requesting clarifications, initiating request for information guiding from the doctor, guiding the physician according to one’s own preferences, and reporting one’s own feelings. In this study, sampling was conducted using a multistage cluster sampling. Initially, among the hospitals in Rasht, three Razi, Poorsina, and Heshmat hospitals were selected as Sample locations. In Razi Hospital, Department of Chemotherapy, in Poorsina Hospital, Neurosurgery, and in Heshmat Hospital, male and female surgery for cardiology were selected as the sample. Then, questionnaires were distributed among the hospitalized patients while receiving a written letter of satisfaction for the intention to cooperate with the interviewer. Sample size using the quantitative Cochran formula was 375, but in this research 372 questionnaires were distributed.

The fundamental hypothesis of this study was that there is a relationship between the social capital of patients with chronic diseases (cancer, neurology and heart and vascular) and the patient relationship model, and this variable can be effective on the shape of the patient's relationship model with his/her doctor. In fact, social capital can be as an available tool for patients to change their own relationships’ model with the doctor to the partnership relationship. To evaluate this issue, Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple regression, and path analysis were used. Pearson correlation test showed that correlation between social capital and patient’s relationship is positive. It means their relationship inclined to the type of partnership as their social capital rises. The results of this study were in line with Coleman (1998) and Burdio (1979) theories regarding the social capital. These two major theoreticians of social capital have had an instrumental look on the social capital. They define the social capital in social arena according to its performance and believe that social capital is a tool that can serve people to achieve their other social goals. Also the findings showed the dimensions of network interactions, local community involvement, social capital job interactions have a positive and direct relationship with the models of patient's relationship which means that the patient's relationship turns to partnership type through increasing in these dimensions. With a bit of precision in these three dimensions, we notice that all three of these aspects are of interaction and relationship. The findings are also in line with network social capital theory. It can be concluded that if the patient's interactions network in various sections such as the local and job interaction network are wider, this strong interaction network can help patient’s partnership interaction with a doctor and as any of these interactions are limited, his relationship with the physician will become limited. The findings of this study also showed that the value dimension of social capital life has a direct and positive relationship with variable of patient relationship model; it means that the patient's relationship inclined to the partnership relation as the value dimension of life increases. As people value their lives and get satisfied with their lives and feel that the world is a valuable place for living, they do not get disappointed of life and survival, and strive to improve their illness and try to provide more information from their doctor to treat the disease. It causes their relationship model to be partnership. Multiple regression results also showed that among the variables of social capital and their dimensions, life value variables, social agency, community involvement in local society and job interactions have entered the regression model and have been able to explain 80.1 percent of the changes of patient’s relationship model. This rate of explanatory power is indicative of the high influence of social capital variable and its abundant importance. The results of this study also show a significant importance of interactions. As we see from the four variables entering the regression equation, only two dimensions, which means participation in the local community and job interactions, will be directly back to the relationship. The relationship dimension is a very important variable in explaining the patient's relationship model. The findings of this section are also in line with Chalabi’s (2014) social capital theory. He considers two important dimensions for social capital in his social capital theory, the relationship and trust; that the findings of this study showed the relationship of social capital is of great importance. Entering a social agency variable into the regression equation also represent that people are being appreciated and those who think everything in their lives depends on destiny, appreciation and society, try less to improve themselves, and therefore will ask the doctor less for information, and thus their relationship model will incline to the dominated relationship. While those who always treat themselves as an agent in life and feel their lives’ destiny depends on themselves and are responsible for their actions and believe that all events happening in their life are the consequences of their own deeds and decisions, they will attempt more to establish a relationship with their doctor to help the improvement of their illness, so their relationship tends to be a partnership-centered model. The results of path analysis and drawing of the final model showed that participation in local community (of social capital dimensions) have the most direct effect (0.520) on the variables of the patient’s relationship model, but the variable of life value (the other dimensions of social capital variable), totally with its direct and indirect effect (0.824) has the highest share in explaining the variance of the patient's relationship model. Social agency also is another variable dimension of social capital which has a direct effect (0.233) on the variable of patient’s relationship model. With regard to the dimensions of social capital which were said having more share than other predictive variables, social class with direct effect (0.243) and indirect effect (0.246-), it can be concluded that the main assumption of research regarding social capital variable effect on the patient relationship model has been approved. It can be said that as much as the patients have higher social capital and are more involved in their local communities to appreciate their lives and have agency and more activism, they can expect their relationship model to be a kind of partnership. In other words, by strengthening social capital, patients are more active in relation to the doctor and demand more contribution from the doctor in the treatment process. But the lower their social capital is, the more passive the relationship will be, and they delegate everything to the doctor. This study attempted to challenge the fundamental assumption that the doctor determines the principle of physician and patient relationship and the results also showed that the doctor is not the only determinant of the relationship model. Provided that efforts to patient’s social capital can be added, doctors can be effective in the relationship model, and they are able to help expedite the healing process.

Election participation, as one of the most important forms of political participation, has a special place in the discussions of political sociology, in general, and election sociology in particular. While we are witnessing various elections in Iran every year, but in contrast to other political phenomena such as the revolution that rarely happens and we are dealing with rich literature in this field, the election process has major theoretical and experimental weaknesses. The lack of compatibility of research findings on the relationship between education and electoral participation over the past four decades in Iran shows that there is no consensus on this issue, because there was no critical analysis in this regard.

Today, women are present in a variety of social settings such as family, neighborhood, school, university and workplace. In each of the social situations, women experience a degree of power exchange. School is one of the social environments in which women can achieve social, economic, and cultural capital as a student. Social space in Iran is governed by a dominant ideological approach, which has a predetermined framework for understanding and interpreting various aspects of social life and seeks to institutionalize certain beliefs in the society. Accordingly, the school has also become an ideological system that shapes the mentality of students based on the components of Islamic ideology. Coverage rules for girls in Iran are one of the processes of ideological development of the minds of students from childhood to adulthood that runs in schools. Hence, the education institution in the student's educational experience process reproduces certain beliefs and values. The educational experience of young girls involves several semiotic resources (e.g. school uniforms, queues, homework, grade, schoolyard, etc.). Although these resources provide diverse functions such as identity, law and order, integrity and coherence for students, they can have a different representation over time, according to which students are in a disabling process, and become passive and careless people about their community. Therefore, the present study seeks to examine the critical and semantic representations of the students’ experience in the form of a semiotic analysis of the narratives of young girls about one of the sources in this experience, namely, school uniforms.

This research has been conducted using a qualitative and interpretive approach to the research problem among young girls aged 18 to 30 who lived in Mashhad and completed their 12-year primary education. The semi-structured interview technique was used to collect the data and its sampling method was based on pseudo-random method and in some cases snowball. In total, 16 interviews were conducted in the research process. Finally, for analyzing the collected data, the social semiotic method based on Van Leeuwen's twelve-step approach has been used.

The results of this study showed that young girls are confronted with two main approaches to school uniform during their educational experience. Some compromise and accept the rules, even though they are free of any element or sign of pleasure. But some other students try to show their dissatisfaction with the rules in this regard in a variety of ways. These people usually have the strategy of resistance and disapproval of the existing conditions.
School uniforms in the eyes of these actors represent the students’ infant position. Therefore, they oppose it in any way. However, in most cases, they find themselves inadequate in law. Particularly, any opposition from students is a cost to them from school administrators. In such a situation, the student sees conflicts between his values ​​and the current values ​​in the school. This process causes students to become socially isolated and ultimately alienate. Therefore, from the perspective of students, school uniforms are not only a choice, but also a task of an overwhelming power which is tied up by accepting a set of norms, requirements, and constraints.In general, the rules for wearing school uniforms put students in a different direction from the formal process of educational experience, which ultimately leads to a kind of alienation. Accordingly, in the students’ educational processes, a kind of semantic breakdown occurs. So, girls do not know the process of education as part of their lives, through which they can achieve economic and social capital and degree of spiritual development, but they see it as a reality imposed on themselves.

Today, the values ​​of various societies are subject to a wide range of changes. These values ​​include a range that varies according to the characteristics of each society. In addition, within societies, the degree of commitment to and following these values ​​among members of each society varies according to the division of gender, class, place of residence, generation, etc. One of these values, regardless of the type and level of commitment, is religiosity. In the definition of religiosity, it is said that religiosity has ‘religious endeavors’ in such a way to influence the attitude, orientation, and individual actions. This research sought to investigate religiosity among the youths of Sar-e-Pol-e Zahab city and its related factors.

The research methodology was a survey approach. The study sample consisted of 635 youths with the age range of 19-29 years in Sar-e-Pul Zahab. They were selected using stratified sampling. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire. The measured dependent variable was religiosity which had three dimensions: emotional, belief, and practical. Social capital as one of the two independent variables of the study had the dimensions of participation, solidarity, trust, socio-economic basis, and ethnic identity. Another independent variable of the study was media consumption. The results indicated that the level of religiosity among respondents was slightly higher than average. Among the dimensions of religiosity, the belief dimension had the highest average, and the practical dimension had the lowest average. Results in relation to gender differences indicated that in terms of emotional and belief dimensions, the level of religiosity of women is significantly more than men. However, there was no significant difference between men and women in practical aspects. But, in relation to the marital status, the results indicated that the level of religiosity of married people in all aspects was greater than that of single people. Pearson correlation test indicated that three variables of social capital, national identity, and ethnic identity had a direct and significant relationship with religious dimension. Media consumption also had a negative and significant relationship with all three dimensions of religiosity. But, the relationship between economic and religious aspects was not meaningful. Finally, the direct and indirect relationships between independent variables and religiosity were tested in the path analysis model.

With the development of social and economic injustice in the cities, further attention has been paid to the subject of the spatial justice to create the social equities among various groups of people and this subject has been changed to a comprehensive and expanding phenomenon in today’s cities. In the cities, the urban space is the result of interaction between the space and community and is the place for flourishing the social life. So, it is a structure appropriate for understanding social injustices and evaluating the amount of the citizens' feeling of justice. The urban public spaces are multi-purpose spaces accessible to the public that are distinguishable from the circumscribed and specific domains of the families and individuals and also are regarded as their mediators. In fact, the public space is an essential and fundamental dimension of human community and the social justice is introduced as one of the primary principles of every community in the public space and both justice and injustice are manifested in the space, because justice depends on the time and place and the kind of relationship between the system and social structures. Therefore, there is an ambiguous relationship between the quality of individuals' lives and the access to services; in such a way that the social injustice itself reflects the access of different individuals to various services in any community. Regarding what was said, the present research aims to study the significance of the relationship between the citizens' feeling of justice in Shiraz city and the quality and manner of their attendance in the urban spaces. Accordingly, the main question of the research is: is there any meaningful relationship between the citizens' feeling of justice in Shiraz city and the number and duration of their attendance in the urban spaces? Furthermore, the hypothesis of the present study is expressed as: there is a meaningful relationship between the feeling of justice of citizens in Shiraz city and the number and duration of their attendance in urban public spaces. It is worth mentioning that despite the existence of different studies regarding social justice and urban development and the emphasis on the distributive characteristics of the justice and manner of individuals' access to the civil services, few investigations have been done on the significance of the relationship between the quality of citizens' attendance in urban space (duration and number of citizens' attendance in urban spaces for the purpose of doing the selective and social activities) and the amount of feeling of social justice (the matter which emphasizes the innovation and newness of this research).

The present study is a survey research and Rasinsky and Feldman's social justice questionnaire has been used as the tool for collecting data. The statistical population was all the citizens of Shiraz city presented in urban public spaces and somehow used the urban spaces. With regard to the uncertainty of the number of statistical population and based on Cochran's formula, 170 members of the population were selected as the sample group. Random sampling was applied for collecting the data of the present research. For this purpose, in the selected public spaces of Shiraz (Gaz Square, Daneshjou Square, Enghelab Street and Eram Street) and in specific intervals of different days of the week, all the individuals aged above 15 years were asked to participate voluntarily in this study. The selected urban public spaces have been placed in the central area and middle texture of Shiraz city near to different urban facilities and services and the attendance of different social groups and age groups have been the main reasons of the selection of these urban public spaces. In fact, the selected urban public spaces have qualities that are directly related to the subject of distributive justice and spatial justice. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire of the present research have been confirmed by the use of content validity and Cronbach's Alpha (0.73). With regard to the non-normal distribution of the data, the non-parametric tests of Mann Whitney and Kruskal Wallis and the correlation coefficient of Kramer have been used for data analysis and expressing the amount of correlation of variables, respectively.

The research results reveal that the feeling of social justice has no relationship with the variable ‘duration of attendance in the urban space’. However, the feeling of social justice has a direct relationship with the number of attendance of citizens in the urban spaces (with an intensity of 0.407). Furthermore, the number of attendance of citizens in the urban spaces has a meaningful relationship with their preferences in regard to competency and the manner of obtaining the facilities (with an intensity of 0.223) and the kind of attitude toward the feeling of compassion and sympathy as the most important human values (with an intensity of 0.181). Also, the citizens' preferences in terms of poverty of individuals for the reason of not having a motivation and goal in life has a relationship with the duration of citizens' attendance in urban spaces (with an intensity of 0.168). In this case, it seems that the situation for the development of feeling of social justice among the citizens can be provided by taking measures necessary to improve the condition and manner of the citizens’ attendance in the urban spaces. In this regard, some of the most important effective strategies are:Need: designing collective spaces for social interactions and collective conversation among citizens; designing appropriate urban furniture in collective spaces for the improvement of social interactions; designing space by regarding all the public facilities necessary for them such as drinking fountain, public lavatory and so on. Equity: considering 24 hours’ land uses for perpetuating citizen's attendance and further monetizing of businesses; paying attention to human scale in the design of urban spaces; establishment of gratuitous entertainments for the purpose of attendance of individuals with little financial affordance and use of them.Equality: designing urban spaces in crowded paths and places with heavy traffic; designing appropriate urban furniture usable for all the individuals; creating versatile uses in the space for the purpose of improvement of variety and diversity.

 designing spaces for social interactions and an opportunity for revealing the individual capacities and inherent talents of citizens, increasing supervisors for better improvement of individuals' safety and security for further attendance of citizens; holding the meetings in the space.