Biannual Journal

Although it can be argued that inequality, distance, and social exclusion have always existed in societies, one cannot ignore reflecting on why, how, and the consequences for the various groups and social systems that are so diverse today. The aim of this study is to explain the relationship between religious identity and the feeling of social exclusion by considering the mediating variable of social status among two groups of Shiite and Sunni students. The statistical sample includes 269 graduate students of the faculties of social sciences of the three universities of Allameh Tabatabai, Tehran and Beheshti, which was determined through the sampling table of Dovas with an error of 0.6. According to the results of two-variable analysis, there is a direct relationship between the level of religious identity and the feeling of social exclusion and an inverse relationship between social status and the feeling of social exclusion. Multivariate regression analysis indicates that the variables included in the equation were able to explain 39% of the variance of the changes related to the dependent variable. The results of path analysis also indicate that the variables of religious identity and ethnicity are directly related and the variables of social status are inversely related to the feeling of social exclusion.