Materialistic Activism: A Qualitative Study on Youth Value Orientation.

Introduction: A value system encompasses the social priorities that shape individuals' goals, actions, and lifestyles. It determines how people behave in society, what objectives they pursue, and how they regulate their interactions. A cohesive and integrated value system within a society sets the stage for individual and social development. However, Iranian society has undergone rapid changes across all domains, including modernization, emergence of new communication and information technologies, growth of national and global mass media, forces of globalization, and other factors that have led to cultural and value transformations. Different groups and institutions have responded to these changes in their own distinct ways. Similar to global trends, young people in Iran are questioning established and traditional identities and values. They are actively seeking new values and striving to shape their own independent, engaged, and individualized identities. Values lie at the heart of their narratives and experiences, influencing their understanding and interpretation of the world. To comprehend this value orientation, interpretative approaches are necessary as they provide a deeper exploration of the underlying layers of meaning. Qualitative methods are better suited for such an understanding, enabling researchers to delve into the profound aspects of value orientation. In this study, we adopted an emic-interpretative approach to explore the value orientation of young people in the city of Yazd. Our aim was to understand the dominant values in their lives, explore the sources and contexts of their value orientation, and gain insights into how they define and pursue their values. By engaging with the experiences of young individuals, we sought to uncover the intricacies of their value systems and the strategies they employ in navigating their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]