جامعه شناسی کاربردی (Jun 2017)
Sociological analysis of cultural citizenship status (Case Study: Tonekabon Citizens)
Abstract
Introduction Cultural citizenship is a set of values, attitudes and common fundamental rules which include a sense of belonging, commitment and respect. Citizenship culture, also known as democratic citizenship, involves activeness, commitment and the acquiring of values, attitudes, skills and loyalty for participation in a social life. Understanding citizenship rights and obligations, respect for peaceful citizen relationships and avoiding any form of ethnocentrism are among the most important principles of cultural citizenship. Iranian society is a community of extensive ethnic, religious and language diversity. These cultural, ethnic and languages groups differ with one another in culture, customs, language and religion, and in order to be able to live together peacefully, they should put any prejudice and ethnocentrism aside and move towards cultural relativism. Consequently, they should recognize each their similarities and differences and work towards the development of intercultural and inter-ethnic relations. The present article aims to analyze the cultural citizenship status of the city of Tonekabon and investigate the role of contributing factors such cultural capital and citizenship culture on cultural citizenship. Material & Methods This theoretical framework of this study is a combined approach in the area of citizenship culture, cultural citizenship and cultural capital from Janoski, Yang, Kymlicka, Marshall, Turner and Bourdieu. In this study, the applied survey method was adopted. The study population constitutes of all the citizens of the city Tonekabon aged 15 to 64 and the sample size is equal to 650 people. The multistage cluster sampling method is adopted and the unit of analysis and observation level of the study is the individual (micro level). The information required of the citizens was gathered using the interview questionnaire method (designed by the researcher). The findings of the respondents were analyzed based on descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS 22. Discussion of Results & Conclusions The results are indicative of a positive correlation, with a weak intensity, between the cultural capital and citizenship culture. Furthermore, there is a significant correlation, with medium intensity, between citizenship culture and cultural citizenship. The citizens’ cultural citizenship and cultural capital were estimated at a high level of 47.2 and 42.20, respectively. In the case of the citizenship culture, it was estimated to be at a medium to high level (48.1).Regarding the relationship between the study’s underlying and main variables, it can be said that there is a significant correlation between the variables of age, income and cultural citizenship. There was also a significant difference between men and women in terms of cultural citizenship. In addition, regarding the variable of cultural capital and its relation with gender, it was found that there is a significant difference between men and women in terms of cultural capital. There is also a significant difference between cultural capital, gender and marital status. It should be admitted that regarding the relationship between cultural citizenship, gender and marital status, there are evident gender differences. The regression results indicate that citizenship culture has a direct and maximum impact (0.47) on cultural citizenship but in the case of the structure of cultural capital, this influence is indirect and through citizenship culture, with a beta of 0.4%.
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