Inequalities in Cultural Capital in Tehran

AbstractCultural turn in contemporary society has undoubtedly turned culture into a major arena for the production and representation of social gaps and inequalities. The interplay of inequalities in access to the capitals and urban life has rarely been a topic for systematic empirical studies in Iran. Relying on a large scale representative survey recently conducted in Tehran, this paper aims to reveal the unequal distribution of cultural capital in Tehran and also to reveal the mechanisms the residents employ both to produce and to display cultural capital. The findings while clarifying the prospects of inequalities in different dimensions of urban cultural capital, highlight the ways cultural capital both affects and is affected by urban [physical] spaces and urban life. This conclusion while uncovering some of the inadequacies related to current cultural capital literature, offers new concepts and spheres by which social inequalities can be conceived in the context of Iranian society

The Youths, Body and Fitness Culture

A recent interest in body issues on the part of academic and scientific circles should be seen as a reaction to the radical changes in relationship between body, economy, technology and society. The growth of nutrition, health and sport technologies along with the increasing importance of agency and consumerism, have turned body and embodiment into major themes in the contemporary society. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data on young boys and girls having regular sport activity, the present paper aims to reveal the relationship and the feelings they have towards their body. The findings indicate that modernity has made the youths more sensitive towards controlling and disciplining their body. Similarly, the competing discourses in public sphere (including the masculine discourse) act as major references in forming, understanding, and representing the body. In addition to reproducing traditional norms and bodily behaviors, such young boys and girls having regular sport activity, the present paper aims to reveal the relationship and the feelings they have towards their body

Youth and Academic and Educational Alienation

The empirical studies undertaken on academic culture in Iran suggest an inefficient academic acculturation and students alienation from the structure and process of a desired academic culture. A sense of powerlessness, normlessness, anomie, social isolation and in general strangement from the self, educational processes, unverrsity camp, academic staff members and also from other students is increasingly growing in the minds and feelings of a considerable number of higher education students in humanities and social sciences. Drawing on a mixed methodology, the following paper aims to reconstruct the phenomenology of academic and educational alienation based on students personal lived experience and narrativity. Apart from accounting for internal and external social factors affecting this experience, we have proposed a typology of the types of alienation experienced by different groups of students and the strategies they have adopted to counter it. Results suggest that alienation is directly affected by culture politics and involves different social, psychological, and economic consequences in their lives

Youth Culture and Cell Phone

Iranian youth’s leisure culture has been immediately affected by the digital media culture. As a communicative media, cell phone has crossed borders of youth norms and identity; and in addition to facilitating their communication, has changed its patterns. Applying Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and field, and relied on the qualitative and quantitative data gathered from the mobile youth users, the present study argues that mobile has produced a new field in which youth’s opportunities for leisure, entertainment, communication, and independence have extended. In addition, cell phone has facilitated and compensated for some defects in public sphere, and therefore empowered youth agency, individuality, and power. Despite this strengthening, cell phone does not cross borders of gender and class differences, or the levels of social capital