Iranians’ Understanding of Wisdom: The Role of Ethnicity, Gender, Age and Education

Abstract

This study aimed to explore and explain Iranians’ understanding of wisdom and the role of ethnicity, gender, age, and academic status in their understanding of it. The study adopts both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The research domain included all above-20 years old Iranians. Taking care of saturation in each ethnicity group, three hundred twenty-eight individuals (134 females and 194 males) were selected through convenience sampling. The participants, coming from different ethnicities including Farses, Azerbaijani Turks, Kurds, Lurs, Baluchis, and Turkmen answered a researcher-developed open-ended questionnaire. Findings suggested that ‘intellectuality’, ‘morality’, ‘civilization’, ‘performance’ and ‘spirituality’ make up different wisdom dimensions in Iranian society. Findings also revealed that unlike gender and age factors, ethnicity and academic status were related to individuals’ understanding of wisdom. Differences were observed between different ethnicities in how much emphasis they place on intellectuality and spirituality dimensions of wisdom; Kurds and Turks emphasized civilization and Lurs and Arabs highlighted spirituality dimension more than other ethnicities. Individuals with higher academic status emphasized intellectuality, civilization, and performance, while those with lower academic status tended to highlight morality and spirituality dimensions of wisdom. Overall, findings suggested that a thorough understanding of wisdom and its constituting elements/components is not easy since it is a complicated and multidimensional notion. On the other hand, the attempt to understand individuals’ understandingof wisdom in a non-Western context and among Iranian ethnicities revealed new dimensions of the construct (i.e., spirituality and morality) that had not been addressed properly before.

Keywords

• wisdom
• ethnicity
• gender
• age
• education