Analyzing the Social Identity of Rural Youth with Emphasis on Virtual Identity: A Ccase Study of Southern Sarroud Sub-district of Boyer-Ahmad County of Iran

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Human Geography, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 PHD Student of Geography and Rural Planning, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

3 MA Graduate in Geography and Urban Planning, Shahid Chamran University, Ahvaz, Iran

Abstract

The identity of a person gives that person some attributes making him/her distinguishable among other people. This study aimed at analyzing the youth’s identities and studying the differences between their identities in real and virtual worlds in Southern Sarroud sub-district of Boyer-Ahmad County in Iran. The required data were collected through field methods (questionnaire) and document methods. The statistical society of the research included the youth living in this sub-district. Based on the Cochran formula, 376 people in 20 rural settlements were selected using purposive and multi-stage cluster sampling and then, they were tested. The studied dimensions in this research included religious, family, modern and ethnic identities. The results showed that there was a self-disagreement of  between the real and virtual identities of the youth while the maximum and minimum self-disagreements were related to the family identity and modern identity with average rates of 1.85 and -0.24, respectively; that is, the average family identity in the real world is more than that in the virtual world and the average modern identity in the real world is less than that in the virtual world. Also, the results of the Pearson test indicated that there were significant relationships between all the dimensions of the identity in the real and virtual worlds while in the dimensions of religious and family identities, the correlation was negative and in the dimensions of modern and ethnic identities, the correlation was positive.

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References

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