Journal of Iranian Social Studies

Abstract Background and aim: This study aims to critically evaluate the family counseling system in Iran and compare it with global approaches. It examines key challenges in the current system and highlights the importance of considering the cultural and religious capacities of Iranian society in designing and improving family counseling models.
Data and method: The research employed a qualitative methodology using a multiple-case study design. Data were collected through the review of counseling case files, semi-structured interviews with 20 clients in the areas of pre-marital counseling, marital conflicts, and divorce, as well as direct observation of the counseling process. Data analysis was conducted using thematic analysis and triangulation of sources.
Findings: The findings indicate that the family counseling system in Iran faces significant challenges, including counselors’ inherent individualism, neglect of cultural and religious contexts, commercialization of services, and premature recommendations for divorce. Conversely, the findings underscore the necessity of leveraging the cultural and religious capacities of Iranian society when designing family counseling models.
Conclusion: The results emphasize the urgent need for restructuring counselor training and evaluation programs, developing culturally sensitive and Islamic-based frameworks, and strengthening regulatory oversight systems. The primary limitation of this research is its focus on a relatively small, qualitative sample, which restricts the generalizability of the findings. Nevertheless, the results offer valuable insights for cultural policymakers, administrators of counseling centers, and researchers in the field of family studies.

Abstract Background and aim: Drawing on a computational social science approach and situated within the theoretical framework of parenting and power relations within the family, the present study examines how parents are represented by Persian-speaking users on the X (Twitter) platform. The study aims to explore the lived experiences reflected on X by children and the ways in which family relationships are represented in virtual space.
Data and method: To this end, using data-mining techniques and big-data analysis, one million relevant tweets posted between Mordad 1402 and Esfand 1402- between August 2023 and March 2024- were collected and classified through random sampling and theoretical coding at two levels: theme-based and theory-based.
Findings: The findings reveal three main patterns in the representation of parents: “supportive parents” (affectionate and democratic), “authoritarian parents” (traditional and controlling), and “unequal parents” (shaped by social and economic disparities).
Conclusion: The dominant representation portrays parents in an empathetic and affectionate manner, whereas critical tweets concerning parents’ class-based or economic circumstances in society—categorized as “unequal parents”—received the highest level of user engagement.
Keywords: Parenting, Big Data, Computational Social Sciences, Authoritarian Parents, Unequal Parents.

Abstract Background and aim: This study aims to present a model of the factors affecting the social responsibility of students at Farhangian University of Kurdistan.
Data and method: The approach of this research was a sequential exploratory design, conducted using thematic analysis and survey methods. The target population for the qualitative phase, aimed at determining the indicators related to social responsibility, consisted of 20 faculty members. The statistical population for the quantitative phase included 1,900 students of Farhangian University of Kurdistan, of which 320 individuals were selected as the sample using Cochran's formula and random sampling.
Findings: Based on the results of the qualitative data analysis, the three-pronged model encompassed 8 categories and three overarching themes: contextual factors (financial resources, physical resources, family), structural factors (organizational structure, strategy, and technology), and behavioral factors (employees and human relations). Furthermore, the social responsibility variable comprised three categories: professional ethics, critique-acceptance, and lifelong learning.
Conclusion: The results of the quantitative data analysis, conducted using confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, and one-sample t-tests, indicated the positive effects of behavioral, structural, and contextual factors on students' social responsibility, respectively.

Abstract Background and aim: Religious reformism has played a significant role in transforming perspectives toward women and expanding opportunities for their political and social participation in post–Islamic Revolution Iranian society through revisiting religious texts and reinterpreting traditional teachings. As a contemporary discourse challenging official and traditional understandings of religion, it has sought to redefine the relationship between religion and social power by reexamining key concepts of Sharia. Within this framework, women’s political empowerment is understood not as an independent discourse but as a sub-discourse of religious reformism. Therefore, this study analyzes religious reformist discourse and explains how it reinterprets or departs semantically from traditional discourse.
Data and method: Drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, this article examines women-related issues in the thought of three religious reformist intellectuals: Seyed Mostafa Mohaqeq Damad, Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari, and Mohsen Kadivar.
Findings: The findings indicate that all three thinkers, by emphasizing concepts such as justice, rationality, and human dignity, seek to construct a new discourse in which women’s political empowerment becomes possible not through opposition to religion, but through the reinterpretation of religion.
Conclusion: Women’s political empowerment within the discourse of religious reformism is not the outcome of theoretical consensus; rather, it emerges from an ongoing discursive struggle with the traditional jurisprudential discourse. Although this discourse has succeeded in moving the meaning of women beyond mere subordination and redefining women as rights-bearing subjects, it still remains constrained by jurisprudential boundaries in certain respects and has been unable to fully transform this redefinition into a political and institutional project.

Abstract Background and aim: Schools are pivotal for socialization but also serve as arenas where power relations and daily interactions can foster violent experiences for children. Children’s voices, especially in sociological research, remain marginalized. This qualitative study addresses this gap by exploring the contexts of school violence from the perspectives of third- and fourth-grade students in Shiraz, Iran. It aims to move beyond adult-centric analyses by centering children as active social agents to provide a nuanced portrayal of the phenomenon.
Data and method: Using a qualitative approach, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 primary school students (boys and girls) from grades three and four in Shiraz. Participants were selected via purposive and convenience sampling to maximize socioeconomic diversity. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis, involving initial coding and the extraction of basic, organizing, and global themes. Member checking was used to enhance trustworthiness.
Findings: The analysis identified six principal organizing themes that constitute the contexts of violence: 1) Overcrowded educational spaces, 2) Inflexible rules, 3) Teacher characteristics and practices, 4) Violence-facilitating physical structures, 5) Systematic child-negating attitudes, and 6) Incoordination among school authorities.
Conclusion: The findings reveal school violence as a multi-dimensional phenomenon woven from structural, cultural, and interpersonal factors. It is reproduced within a matrix of power relations and historical educational structures, perpetuating symbolic, structural, and direct violence. Consequently, the study underscores the urgent need to re-evaluate educational policies and structures, advocating for reforms that place children’s voices and experiences at their core.

Abstract Background and aim: This ethnographic study aims to investigate the lifeworld and lived experiences of Generation Z within the public spaces and urban “hangouts” of Borujerd. The research addresses how these adolescents reclaim the “right to the city” and produce “lived spaces” while navigating the divide between indigenous traditions and global cultural patterns.
Data and method: The methodology employs an ethnographic approach, emphasizing participant observation, in-depth interviews, and semiotic analysis, conducted in key urban hangouts (Takhti Street, Niloofar Passage, Shohada Square, and Fadak Park) throughout 2025–2026.
Findings: Findings indicate that Generation Z in Borujerd transforms commercial and recreational spaces into “scenes of identity performance” through “tactics of presence.” By adopting oversized fashion, drill music, and embodied rituals (e.g., vaping), they challenge the city’s disciplinary order. Furthermore, the use of informal language serves a “carnivalesque” function; by temporarily inverting the prevailing order, it transforms the street into a site for the symbolic occupation of space. Data analysis points to the emergence of “collective individualism” within “neotribal” crews, which utilize “hybrid living” to turn hangouts into a medium for accumulating subcultural capital. Moreover, the results reveal that despite cultural commonalities, gender disparities persist in patterns of presence and body management a process that manifests as a “gender rearrangement” in contemporary forms. By employing impression management when confronting the “normative other,” this generation is redefining its subjectivity within mid-sized cities.
Conclusion: The study emphasizes the necessity for urban management to shift from exclusionary approaches toward recognizing cultural and spatial diversity, thereby bridging the gap between the “official city” and the “lived city.”