فصلنامه تعلیم و تربیت
سال سی و هشتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 149، بهار 1401)

In any society, schools have crucial importance when it comes to improving social and interpersonal relationships and solving social problems. One of the best ways to solve social problems is to identify communication problems and provide training in communication skills from lower ages, particularly in primary school. Therefore, the present study poses the question: what interpersonal and social problems can be found in second-grade primary schoolchildren? This study has been conducted using the qualitative content analysis method with a summative approach. Analyzing interview transcripts with 20 teachers from three different school districts in the city of Tehran (Districts 15, 16, and 19) led to eight different categories identified for students' interpersonal and social problems: 1. problems regarding controlling emotions and creating tension, 2. problems arising in discourse or getting one's message across, 3. collaboration and teamwork problems, 4. problems in problem-solving and thinking, 5. character-wise problems, 6. self-protection problems, 7. problems in intrapersonal communication, and 8. weaknesses in making friends. From teachers' point of view, communication problems cannot be solved by providing students with instructions alone; some variables need to be taken into consideration and changed and revised significantly, such as harmony among different institutions (i.e. families, neighborhoods, school, the media, etc.), teachers' skills, the number of students, students' grade, how long training lasts, the adequacy of school personnel as well the education content itself.

The present research aims to identify the global components involved in the professional development of teachers. The research is of qualitative kind, and synthesis research has been used. The data have been collected by means of literature review and studying theoretical background, and systematic searching of library resources, dissertation theses and articles on databases such as IranDoc, Magiran, Springer, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and ERIC. From the domestic studies carried out from 2011 to 2017 and the foreign studies conducted from 2008 to 2018, 80 studies were identified, and 53 of them were selected for analysis. Inductive content analysis and open coding with a selective approach were used in this research. In order to validate the credibility of the findings, peer descriptions were used, social competence was used to provide dependability, and reflection notes were used to achieve confirmability, and purposive sampling was used on order to provide transferability. The studies showed an increase in the synthesis research conducted in recent years, and the model provided by this study can be categorized into three dimensions: knowledge (specialized knowledge, knowledge of IT and educational and developmental knowledge), ethos (personal ethics and organizational ethics) and action (interpersonal relationships, intra-organizational relationships, and extra-organizational relationships). Policy makers and planners can use the conceptual model provided by this study to divide appropriate strategies aiming to bring about teachers' professional development and improve the quality of education. Teachers will also be able to use the model in order to enhance their competences and update their knowledge and skills.

Objective-wise, this research falls into the applied category, while a qualitative method has been used, and the model has been designed based on the Delphi method. The statistical population consisted of all educational and administration sciences professors, senior executives of higher education institutes, and deputy directors of the seven school districts in the city of Mashhad during the school year of 2017-2018. Having designed the initial conceptual model based on theoretical background and qualitative analysis, we sent the dimensions and components of the model to 20 well-informed individuals, and the validity of each question was assessed and surveyed in three different stages of the Delphi method. Moreover, after some recommended modifications were made in the questionnaire for this study based on the findings, the final draft of the questionnaire was prepared. Therefore, face validity has been the basis for the assessment of the validity of the research tool, for points of view of well-informed individuals have been used. Factor analysis has also been used. Using the data obtained from the pre-test for a sample consisting of 25 individuals, the Cronbach's alpha was calculated to be greater than 0.8, which indicates the high reliability of the research tool used. Based on the findings of this research, the competence model consists of four dimensions -- individual, communicative, organizational and professional -- and 32 components. Furthermore, the succession method consisted of four stages -- determining policies, assessing candidates, training candidates and evaluating their effectiveness -- and 9 components.

This article aims to study the latest research findings in order to achieve common concepts and new outlooks on humor in education as an effort to explain the significance of the practical usage of humor to enhance the quality of education in the Iranian system of education. Following a synthesis research method, the present study has extracted the common components and points existing in studies related to humor and provided a rearranged, revised and analyzed synthesis of the data and findings based on the principles of consolidation. The findings indicate that humor has a very high potential to be used in educational environments and can, through providing a more refreshed atmosphere, raising students' spirits, eliminating boredom, enhancing attentiveness and self-confidence and improving student-teacher relationships, help enrich educational programs. It is to be noted that teachers have, for a very long time, used verbal and non-verbal humor in their classes quite often as efforts to further the process of education, keep students happy and lively and enhance their attentiveness. Although they might not have considered the use of humor in the classroom from a scientific point of view, the present study claims that by developing the culture of humor has an educational method can provide a catalyst to make teachers' jobs easier and allow educational goals to be achieved faster and at greater ease. Suggestions have also been provided on how to use the findings of this research in order to enhance the quality of education and help students learn better.

Based on the grounds giving form to teachers' professional identity in Iran's educational system, the present study aims to provide a framework to portray, with a power-based approach, the various kinds of professional identity which can be perceived for Iranian teachers. For this purpose, narratives were collected and the discourses were analyzed, which led to different kinds of issues regarding teachers' professional identity, all of which pointed out the influence of power in the creation of identity. Then, in order to organize the findings in accordance with an established theory, Michel Foucault's views and his approach to critical discourse analysis were used. Using documentary analysis, an episteme-like two-dimensional matrix was devised as a framework to display the various possible identities for teachers in the context of Iranian education. One dimension represents the elements constituting the powers residing over teachers' professional performance, while the other dimension depicts the different reactions teachers showed to these elements of power. When these dimensions meet, possibilities arise, each of which can symbolize teachers' identity. Therefore, the different kinds of identity systematically placed in the matrix-like framework of "power like protection" can be regarded as the main findings of this study, which can prove useful when it comes to explaining the range of changes in teachers' identity based on changes in power relations.

The present research aims to determine the level of and also the conditions influencing institutional habitus in students in the city of Mashhad. The conceptual framework of the research has been compiled based on Bourdieu’s theories, and survey as well as content analysis have been used to collect and analyze data. Using a survey approach, the statistical population was formed from among students in schools in the city of Mashhad by means cluster sampling and the Cochran formula, which led to 390 students being selected. As for the thematic analysis, 31 teachers were interviewed as the key well-informed using purposive sampling and theoretical saturation criterion. The quantitative results point out students' institutional habitus to be lower than the average level, and the qualitative results also indicate weakening institutional habitus in students in recent years owing to circumstances both within and beyond the field. Therefore, the results of this study qualitatively and quantitatively point to a wane in the level of students' institutional habitus, which is unfavorable for education, a field among the most significant of social fields. Given the correlation between the fields of production and consumption in education, it is necessary that the posed challenge be addressed, studied and put right.

The present research aims to study junior high school teachers' perception of control over curriculum decisions and identify factors that influence it. The survey method was used for this descriptive research, and the statistical population consisted of all junior high school teachers in the region of Babol in 2017. Using single-stage cluster sampling, 202 teachers were selected as the statistical sample. The Paik questionnaire (2015) was used to collect data, and Pearson correlation as well as simultaneous linear and multiple regression were used for data analysis. The results point out that teachers understand quantitative control in all areas of decision making. In regard to educational strategies, they show the highest level of cognition of control, while in content, the lowest level of cognition of control is indicated. Teachers' attention to the curriculum guide, the teacher's book, students' needs, and local matters showed a meaningful correlation, whereas their attention to the textbooks and assessment proved to have a negative correlation with their perception of control. Teachers' positive beliefs regarding the curriculum, content knowledge, teachers' pedagogical knowledge and collaboration with other teachers proved to be correlated to teachers' cognition of curriculum. In particular, in the case of content knowledge, teachers' pedagogical knowledge and collaboration with other teachers, correlation was shown to be high. However, teachers' knowledge of how to use the content in the curriculum showed no meaningful correlation with their cognition of the curriculum. Moreover, teachers' collaboration proved to be meaningfully correlated with increasing their cognition of decision making, while the correlation was not meaningful in the case of using the curriculum and improving teachers' knowledge.

The present research aims to compare the effect of training on life skills and mindfulness-based reducing stress upon emotional quotient in schoolgirls. A semi-empirical method (i.e., pre-test and post-test) was devised for the research, which included a test group and a control group. 60 ninth-grade students with lower grades on the Bar-On Eq-i scale (1997) were selected by means of convenience sampling  from three girls' high schools in School District 3 in Tehran (Roshangaran, Bamdad Parsi, and Narjes) during the school year of 2019-2020 and randomly put into two test groups (each consisting of 20 students) and a control group (consisting of 20 students). The first group were given training on life skills (consisting of ten weekly sessions, each session lasting 90 to 120 minutes), while the second group were trained in mindfulness-based stress reduction (8 weekly 2-hour sessions). The control group received no training at all. All examinees filled out the Bar-On Eq-i questionnaire (1997) before and after training. Univariate and multivariate covariance analysis was used for data analysis. The results pointed out meaningful increases in average emotional intelligence scores as well as its components in the post-tests in the mindfulness-based stress reduction group compared to the life skills group and also in the life skills group compared to the control group. It can be concluded overall that mindfulness-based stress reduction training proved more effective than training on life skills when it came to improving female high school students' emotional intelligences.