Study of Religious and National Identity of Teenagers and Youths in Tehran (Emphasizing the Reference Group)

Religious and national identity of youths is very important considering their constructive role in the fate of the country. In other hand, the acceptance of national and religious identity by young people depends on their effective acceptance of the models and also existence of effectiveness models in the community. So, the purpose of this paper is to study the level of national and religious identity and it’s relation to the variable of reference group of youths and adolescents. This article is used of Heyman and Merton theory for the selection of reference groups.
Data of this research collected with survey method and using questionnaire techniques, in January 2011 in Tehran with a sample of 811 young people between 15 to 30 ages. The results of research showed that religious identity is superior on national identity among females, while this situation is reversed among men.
In relation to the national identity, the important variables are: religious men: (0.092), teachers: (0.113), rich people: (-0.090), authors: (0.05) and warrior views: (0.043) and in field of religious identity, the important variables are: religious men: (0.204), Basijis: (0.070), rich people: (-0.098), authors: (-0.059), judges: (0.064) and warrior views: (0.081).