Factors affecting the value revitalization of Qajar religious schools in Tehran

Abstract

Nowadays, due to natural erosion and urban development, Qajar religious schools in Tehran have undergone adverse physical changes. Moreover, the semantic and intangible values of them have faded over time, such that their position in society has declined. The religious schools need the conservation and revitalization of their values. Various research has been conducted on the philosophy of education, and the spatial evolution history of Tehran’s religious schools. However, since no study has been carried out on the value revitalization of them, the present study, as an exploratory and novel study, mainly aims to experimentally investigate experts’ views to revitalize the value of Qajar religious schools in Tehran. Delphi research method and Q-type factor analysis were used to identify and classify experts’ views, respectively. Participants were selected through the purposive non-probability sampling technique. The sample size was selected to be 25, which was confirmed according to the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test used for sampling adequacy. To collect data from experts, a questionnaire was used in three rounds based on the Delphi method. Data obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed using the Q method. Based on the obtained results, up to 73.267% of factors affecting the value revitalization of Qajar religious schools in Tehran were identified and interpreted with certainty based on interviews with the experts. The experts were divided into eight groups or factors based on their views, and seven of which introduced common variables and concepts, named based on their constituent variables. Based on the value of the coefficient of variation, the identified effective factors included climatic architecture (20.51%), resilient architecture (13.45%), spiritual architecture (8.98%), environmental aesthetics (8.12%), educational architecture (6.87%), structural architecture (6.450%), and site visiting (4.566%). It was concluded that in the value revitalization of the religious schools, paying serious attention to these seven effective factors underlies the conservation process.