Journal of Iranian Social Studies

Abstract The early ethnographic works portrayed children as passive recipients of culture; however, more recent studies consider them as experiencing subjects endowed with meaning and value, deserving serious attention in social science. This article, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, examines how childhood is experienced in a marginalized neighborhood. The fieldwork was conducted in the Ghapanlar neighborhood of Tabriz from 2015 to 2020, with data collected through participation, observation, and interviews. This anthropological study focuses on the actual living conditions of children, the expectations of their families and NGOs, and the children's responses to life in poverty. The ethnographic narrative of marginalized children begins from the prenatal stage, where children, affected by the commodification of healthcare services, face vulnerabilities and deficiencies. Subsequently, they experience hunger and repressed desires while living through periods of severe unemployment among their laborer fathers, navigating alleys with numerous steps, and residing in hillside homes with cracked, crumbling roofs. By the age of seven, Ghapanlar’s children fall victim to the symbolic violence of NGOs and their families due to the commodification of education, which imposes the lifestyle of higher social classes upon them. Nevertheless, the children's response to such conditions is described as a "ethical struggle." Finding their parents helpless in the face of poverty, these children support them by sewing shoes and scavenging waste.    

Abstract This article seeks to compare the discourse of the music of the Constitutional period to the revolution of 1979(Iranian revolution). Musical discourse developments in the two periods can show the discursive developments of two historical periods of Iran, especially in revolutionary conditions. In the constitutional period, the compositions of Aref Qazvini and then Muhammad Taqi Bahar (late Qajar and early Pahlavi I) have been selected as examples; Aref is the most famous composer of this period, whose works remain in the social and musical history of Iran. The "Chavush Music Center" has also been selected as an example for the compositions of the period of the revolution of 1979.
The social differences between the two periods have been the production of different contents, the poems of the constitutional period are less epic, and they're more of a social narrator with grief. Poems during the revolution of 1979 especially compositions made by Chavosh Center, they're more epic, and they're also looking to stimulate the society. This is also obvious in the form, the music of the revolution of 1979 is march and exciting and generally "heroic verse" unlike constitutional music which is sad and querulous, and both show the social status and the social discourse of each period. This comparison shows that the society has suffered social despair in the constitutional period with the failures it has faced; this is while the discourse of the revolution of 1979 encourages the society to fight continuously and achieve victory.
 

Abstract Without addressing urban neoliberalism, mass society, and urban democracy in Iran, it is impossible to provide a valid picture of the regime of urban social policy-making and how voiceless/powerless groups are excluded from the urban policy cycle. A critical insight at the constructive contexts of the city is necessary to make visible the exclusionary mechanisms that have been neglected so far. In this article, with the help of grounded theory, an attempt has been made to construct a model through qualitative and quantitative data collected from lived experience, content analysis, and thematic analysis -for historical data gathering-, secondary data, and existing statistics, and newspaper content, in order to explain how different groups are socially excluded.
The structured state of interdependence between the contexts of “undifferentiated society”, “mass urban democracy” and “neoliberal urban political economy” is the most decisive factor in the urban social policy regime, which generally serves the interests of powerful groups and ignores the needs and requirements of voiceless/powerless groups, thus reproducing and intensifying structured socio-economic inequalities. The weakened civil society and the alignment of urban management interests with the urban ruling class are also the most important features of the urban social policy regime in the Tehran metropolis.
 
 

Abstract Communicative rationality as imagination and emotional capital plays a constructive and vital role in the stability of families. The purpose of the article is to investigate the rationality of communication among couples in Guilan province. In terms of research method, qualitative approach, theoretical sampling, data-based method and semi-structured interview have been used. The number of interviewees was 45, who were examined with maximum variety until theoretical saturation was achieved. The findings show that the interviewees are divided into two types of dialogue and monologue families among couples in Guilan province. Therefore, in conflicting couples, monologue relationships or, in Martin Buber's words, the "I-It" rule, but in dialogue couples, they have an "I-Thou" relationship. The most important causal conditions of communication rationality among the interviewees can be patriarchal thinking, lack of flexibility, lack of empathic understanding, arrogance, emotional immaturity and extramarital relationships. One of the intervening conditions or social processes in the Habermasian sense is the weakening of modern world life, which has caused the distance of marital relationships, erosion of social capital, family collapse and the dominance of strategic relations. Also, based on the lived experience of the interviewees, the lower classes of society who have less socio-economic capital have weaker communication rationality. According to the findings, the central core of the issue of communication rationality between couples is the concept of "instrumental rationality" and the weakness of the "I-Thou" relationship.  

Abstract This article has analyzed and explained the social movements of 1376-1402 from the perspective of political sociology. In this article, regarding the social and political developments of the years after the Iran-Iraq war, it has been shown that the social movements of these years can be analyzed according to the class analysis inspired by Eric Olin Wright's theory, moving from the "reform movement" to "democracy Street", and showed that the main carriers of these social movements were the "middle class" at first, yet gradually included the "poor middle class". In this research, the comparative-historical analysis method (a type of narrative analysis) has been used, in which, by identifying critical junctures, the role of political entrepreneur in relation to the existing political structure is analyzed to understand the nature of post-revolutionary social movements in Iran. According to the results of this article, it should be said that street democracy is the opposite of the reform movement for the following reasons: they are 1) action-oriented, 2) pragmatic, 3) without leadership, 4) lacking in organization, 5) focused on the hardships of daily life and 6) event-oriented. In addition, it should be mentioned that the main goal of the "reform movement" was political justice, but the main goal of "street democracy" is social justice and seeks to reduce "inequality" and "corruption" and increase "social capital".    

Abstract Financial corruption is one of the most important causes of weakening economic growth and development. The World Bank has raised the issue of good governance as the main topic of economic policies of governments, especially in underdeveloped and developing countries. One of the most important indicators of good governance is the fight and eradication of corruption. The importance of fighting corruption has led to extensive studies on the factors affecting the control of financial corruption in recent years. The aim of this article is to examine the effects of social capital on financial corruption in Iran. For this purpose, after estimating the fuzzy social capital and financial corruption in Iran, the autoregressive model with distributional lags (ARDL) was used to estimate the long-term relationship of the financial corruption model. The results show that the elasticity of financial corruption to social capital during the period 1360-1399 is negative and equal to -0.52 percent. This finding confirms the fact that in the long run, by strengthening social capital in the country, the volume of financial corruption would decrease.