Competition of Different Academic Disciplines in the Academic Field (Comparison of the Cultural Capital of Four Disciplines in the University of Isfahan)

Introduction Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory about existence of various hierarchies in the academic field, this study attempts to investigate the development of cultural hierarchy in Iran’s academic field around cultural capital, assuming the existence of the social-economic hierarchy. To this end, the ternary dimensions of the cultural capital have been compared in the students of four academic disciplines including: Medicine, Law, Industrial design, and Sociology. Of course, this article specially focuses on the Sociology as the youngest social knowledge and its status within these hierarchies. This focus is due to the fact that, in recent decades, sociology has undergone a significant development, qualitatively and quantitatively, and has changed from a marginal science to one of the main subjects of the arguments. Moreover, another event which has occurred in the Iran academic field is the special tendency among students of other disciplines to enter the majors related to the discipline of social sciences, and particularly, sociology, for their higher education. In recent years most of the students in Master’s degree and PhD levels are from the graduates in such well-positioned disciplines of the social-economic hierarchy as Medicine and Engineering. In recent years, statistics suggest that more than half of the students who have passed the Master’s Degree examinations of sociology are from disciplines other than the social sciences. Accordingly, in the introduction section and the part related to the research problem, while the importance and position of the sociology in general and its merits have been explained, it’s been claimed that this academic discipline has the high capability to respond to most social problems.