Fereshteh Ahmadi - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Fereshteh Ahmadi

Social Sciences, 2023

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

In this chapter, the result of three research studies on meaning-making coping conducted among ca... more In this chapter, the result of three research studies on meaning-making coping conducted among cancer patients in Sweden is used to highlight the effect of music in coping with cancer. The first re ...

Iranian Islam, 1998

The objective of this chapter is to study the impact of the non-dualistic view of Sufism on the s... more The objective of this chapter is to study the impact of the non-dualistic view of Sufism on the social and cultural life of Iranians, with special emphasis on the question of individuality. As has been argued in the introduction to this part, it has been our intention to elucidate the philosophical obstacles to the development of the concept of the individual as an independent and autonomous category in Iranian ways of thinking. We now want by means of some examples to depict the way the philosophical premises of Sufism have influenced Iranian culture at large.

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world with severe health consequences, affecting some p... more Background: The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world with severe health consequences, affecting some populations more than others. One understudied population is the academic community. This study, part of a larger project looking at COVID-19 in Sweden and internationally, aims to understand the individual and collective dimensions of resilience among academics in Sweden during the early wave of the pandemic. Method: A quantitative research design was applied for this cross-sectional study. We used simple random sampling, administered through an online survey, on academics at Swedish universities (n = 278, 64% women). We employed the CD-RISC 2 (the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale) to measure personal/individual resilience, additional items for social/collective resilience, and a meaning-making coping instrument (meaning, control, comfort/spirituality, intimacy/spirituality, life transformation). Results: The results revealed a strong level of personal/individual resilience among men (M ...

SN Social Sciences

This article examines the impact of the host society’s social characteristics on second-generatio... more This article examines the impact of the host society’s social characteristics on second-generation immigrants’ understanding of their national and ethnic identities. Specifically, we studied how second-generation Iranians in Sweden identify themselves with Iranian society, with the Iranian ethnic group in Sweden, and/or with Swedish society, and then we compared second-generation Iranians in Sweden with those in the USA concerning the issue in question. To gather the data in Sweden, we used semi-structured e-mail interviews with 15 young people of Iranian background. We used secondary data to compare our results with those obtained in the USA. When comparing the results of this study with those obtained in the USA, we did not find the identity tensions and crisis reported by research on second-generation Iranians in the USA in members of the same generation in Sweden. Some policy recommendations were suggested.

Illness, Crisis & Loss

In this paper, we have mapped the coping methods used to address the coronavirus pandemic by memb... more In this paper, we have mapped the coping methods used to address the coronavirus pandemic by members of the academic community. We conducted an anonymous survey of a convenient sample of 674 faculty/staff members and students from September to December 2020. A modified version of the RCOPE scale was used for data collection. The results indicate that both religious and existential coping methods were used by respondents. The study also indicates that even though 71% of informants believed in God or another religious figure, 61% reported that they had tried to gain control of the situation directly without the help of God or another religious figure. The ranking of the coping strategies used indicates that the first five methods used by informants were all non-religious coping methods (i.e., secular existential coping methods): regarding life as a part of a greater whole, regarding nature as an important resource, listening to the sound of surrounding nature, being alone and contempl...

Frontiers in Sociology, 2022

Objectives: The present study, one of the first to look at COVID-19 and coping in Iran, aimed at ... more Objectives: The present study, one of the first to look at COVID-19 and coping in Iran, aimed at mapping, describing and understanding the coping methods academics employ as protective resources to deal with the psychological challenges and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. We specifically aimed at identifying the meaning-making coping methods used and understanding the influence of culture. The guiding research question has been: Are there differences in meaning-making coping methods by gender, age group, work/student status, and place of residence?Design: The study, which used convenience sampling, was a quantitative inquiry. It employed a modified version of the RCOPE scale among faculty/staff members and students in Iran (n = 196, 75% women).Results: The most frequently used coping method among all subgroups of the study sample was thinking that life is part of a greater whole, followed by praying to Allah/God. The least used coping methods were the negative religio...

Nordic Social Work Research, 2021

Nordic Social Work Research, 2021

International Journal of Children's Spirituality, 2020

ABSTRACT The aim of the present article is to discuss what children regard as important in life a... more ABSTRACT The aim of the present article is to discuss what children regard as important in life and how they view the purpose of life. We proceed from a new materiality perspective. The results are based on a study conducted in Sweden among 40 6- to 9-year-old children in two different classes in two elementary schools. A qualitative data-collection method was used involving text reading and movie viewing. In the present article, we begin with a theoretical discussion of the new materiality perspective before presenting our results. The findings show that children perceive togetherness, kindness, fairness and freedom as basic values for their own part and that they consider wealth and family to be basic societal values. There is a value differentiation going on in children’s thinking, a result of which is that some values step out as basic values for children. A map of values is construed that aims to explicate children’s value orientation.

Boken ar en samling av de flesta texter som har publicerats i samband med Mangfaldsbarometern.I d... more Boken ar en samling av de flesta texter som har publicerats i samband med Mangfaldsbarometern.I det forsta kapitlet redogor Fereshteh Ahmadi, Mehrdad Darvishpour och Irving Palm for resultat fran M ...

Meaning-making Methods for Coping with Serious Illness, 2018

Illness, Crisis & Loss, 2021

Sanctification is an important phenomenon and should be of keen interest to those studying religi... more Sanctification is an important phenomenon and should be of keen interest to those studying religious and spiritually oriented coping. Oddly enough, this phenomenon has not received a great deal of attention. One reason may be that sanctification does not directly apply to institutional religious involvement. Moreover, the sacred cannot easily be discerned in people’s coping experience. On important issue is also the lack of attention to the role of culture in coping. One of the researchers who has paid considerable attention to the concept of sanctification and has developed it from different perspectives is Kenneth Pargament. The aim of this article is give rise to a vital discussion on the role of sanctification in coping from a cultural perspective. In doing this, we will first introduce Pargament’s approach to religion and spirituality and then his view on sanctification and then we will put forward our own critique of some discussions on this subject, concluding with our own view.

Meaning-making Methods for Coping with Serious Illness, 2018

This book provides an alternative, complementary approach to the existing conventional approaches... more This book provides an alternative, complementary approach to the existing conventional approaches to religious and spiritually oriented coping. By focusing on the role of culture, the authors take ...

Journal of Aging and Identity, 1996

Journal of Aging and Identity, 1996

In-depth interviews with elderly Iranian immigrants who commute regularly between their country o... more In-depth interviews with elderly Iranian immigrants who commute regularly between their country of origin and Sweden, have been used in order to understand the qualities of this commuting. Is the flying Dutchman alien and rootless in both societies or a p

Socialmedicinsk Tidskrift, 1996

Iranian Islam and the Concept of the Individual : On the Non-Development of the Concept of the In... more Iranian Islam and the Concept of the Individual : On the Non-Development of the Concept of the Individual in the Ways of Thinking of Iranians

Social Sciences, 2023

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

In this chapter, the result of three research studies on meaning-making coping conducted among ca... more In this chapter, the result of three research studies on meaning-making coping conducted among cancer patients in Sweden is used to highlight the effect of music in coping with cancer. The first re ...

Iranian Islam, 1998

The objective of this chapter is to study the impact of the non-dualistic view of Sufism on the s... more The objective of this chapter is to study the impact of the non-dualistic view of Sufism on the social and cultural life of Iranians, with special emphasis on the question of individuality. As has been argued in the introduction to this part, it has been our intention to elucidate the philosophical obstacles to the development of the concept of the individual as an independent and autonomous category in Iranian ways of thinking. We now want by means of some examples to depict the way the philosophical premises of Sufism have influenced Iranian culture at large.

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world with severe health consequences, affecting some p... more Background: The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world with severe health consequences, affecting some populations more than others. One understudied population is the academic community. This study, part of a larger project looking at COVID-19 in Sweden and internationally, aims to understand the individual and collective dimensions of resilience among academics in Sweden during the early wave of the pandemic. Method: A quantitative research design was applied for this cross-sectional study. We used simple random sampling, administered through an online survey, on academics at Swedish universities (n = 278, 64% women). We employed the CD-RISC 2 (the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale) to measure personal/individual resilience, additional items for social/collective resilience, and a meaning-making coping instrument (meaning, control, comfort/spirituality, intimacy/spirituality, life transformation). Results: The results revealed a strong level of personal/individual resilience among men (M ...

SN Social Sciences

This article examines the impact of the host society’s social characteristics on second-generatio... more This article examines the impact of the host society’s social characteristics on second-generation immigrants’ understanding of their national and ethnic identities. Specifically, we studied how second-generation Iranians in Sweden identify themselves with Iranian society, with the Iranian ethnic group in Sweden, and/or with Swedish society, and then we compared second-generation Iranians in Sweden with those in the USA concerning the issue in question. To gather the data in Sweden, we used semi-structured e-mail interviews with 15 young people of Iranian background. We used secondary data to compare our results with those obtained in the USA. When comparing the results of this study with those obtained in the USA, we did not find the identity tensions and crisis reported by research on second-generation Iranians in the USA in members of the same generation in Sweden. Some policy recommendations were suggested.

Illness, Crisis & Loss

In this paper, we have mapped the coping methods used to address the coronavirus pandemic by memb... more In this paper, we have mapped the coping methods used to address the coronavirus pandemic by members of the academic community. We conducted an anonymous survey of a convenient sample of 674 faculty/staff members and students from September to December 2020. A modified version of the RCOPE scale was used for data collection. The results indicate that both religious and existential coping methods were used by respondents. The study also indicates that even though 71% of informants believed in God or another religious figure, 61% reported that they had tried to gain control of the situation directly without the help of God or another religious figure. The ranking of the coping strategies used indicates that the first five methods used by informants were all non-religious coping methods (i.e., secular existential coping methods): regarding life as a part of a greater whole, regarding nature as an important resource, listening to the sound of surrounding nature, being alone and contempl...

Frontiers in Sociology, 2022

Objectives: The present study, one of the first to look at COVID-19 and coping in Iran, aimed at ... more Objectives: The present study, one of the first to look at COVID-19 and coping in Iran, aimed at mapping, describing and understanding the coping methods academics employ as protective resources to deal with the psychological challenges and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. We specifically aimed at identifying the meaning-making coping methods used and understanding the influence of culture. The guiding research question has been: Are there differences in meaning-making coping methods by gender, age group, work/student status, and place of residence?Design: The study, which used convenience sampling, was a quantitative inquiry. It employed a modified version of the RCOPE scale among faculty/staff members and students in Iran (n = 196, 75% women).Results: The most frequently used coping method among all subgroups of the study sample was thinking that life is part of a greater whole, followed by praying to Allah/God. The least used coping methods were the negative religio...

Nordic Social Work Research, 2021

Nordic Social Work Research, 2021

International Journal of Children's Spirituality, 2020

ABSTRACT The aim of the present article is to discuss what children regard as important in life a... more ABSTRACT The aim of the present article is to discuss what children regard as important in life and how they view the purpose of life. We proceed from a new materiality perspective. The results are based on a study conducted in Sweden among 40 6- to 9-year-old children in two different classes in two elementary schools. A qualitative data-collection method was used involving text reading and movie viewing. In the present article, we begin with a theoretical discussion of the new materiality perspective before presenting our results. The findings show that children perceive togetherness, kindness, fairness and freedom as basic values for their own part and that they consider wealth and family to be basic societal values. There is a value differentiation going on in children’s thinking, a result of which is that some values step out as basic values for children. A map of values is construed that aims to explicate children’s value orientation.

Boken ar en samling av de flesta texter som har publicerats i samband med Mangfaldsbarometern.I d... more Boken ar en samling av de flesta texter som har publicerats i samband med Mangfaldsbarometern.I det forsta kapitlet redogor Fereshteh Ahmadi, Mehrdad Darvishpour och Irving Palm for resultat fran M ...

Meaning-making Methods for Coping with Serious Illness, 2018

Illness, Crisis & Loss, 2021

Sanctification is an important phenomenon and should be of keen interest to those studying religi... more Sanctification is an important phenomenon and should be of keen interest to those studying religious and spiritually oriented coping. Oddly enough, this phenomenon has not received a great deal of attention. One reason may be that sanctification does not directly apply to institutional religious involvement. Moreover, the sacred cannot easily be discerned in people’s coping experience. On important issue is also the lack of attention to the role of culture in coping. One of the researchers who has paid considerable attention to the concept of sanctification and has developed it from different perspectives is Kenneth Pargament. The aim of this article is give rise to a vital discussion on the role of sanctification in coping from a cultural perspective. In doing this, we will first introduce Pargament’s approach to religion and spirituality and then his view on sanctification and then we will put forward our own critique of some discussions on this subject, concluding with our own view.

Meaning-making Methods for Coping with Serious Illness, 2018

This book provides an alternative, complementary approach to the existing conventional approaches... more This book provides an alternative, complementary approach to the existing conventional approaches to religious and spiritually oriented coping. By focusing on the role of culture, the authors take ...

Journal of Aging and Identity, 1996

Journal of Aging and Identity, 1996

In-depth interviews with elderly Iranian immigrants who commute regularly between their country o... more In-depth interviews with elderly Iranian immigrants who commute regularly between their country of origin and Sweden, have been used in order to understand the qualities of this commuting. Is the flying Dutchman alien and rootless in both societies or a p

Socialmedicinsk Tidskrift, 1996

Iranian Islam and the Concept of the Individual : On the Non-Development of the Concept of the In... more Iranian Islam and the Concept of the Individual : On the Non-Development of the Concept of the Individual in the Ways of Thinking of Iranians