جامعه شناسی کاربردی (Sep 2017)
Ecological citizenship and spiritual Intelligence (The Case of Tabriz Citizens)
Abstract
Introduction: The harmful effects of human activities on the natural world have generated great public concerns, as they may lead to the formation of a new kind of citizenship under the name of Ecological Citizenship. Ecological citizenship is built on the voluntary responsibility and committed citizens in connection with the natural world. Also, ecological citizenship, have characteristics such as non-contractual responsibility regarding to public and private spheres, virtue-oriented, and being non-territory or non-discriminatory. In sustainability studies, ecological citizenship is seen as means to achieve sustainable society. The reason is that ecological citizenship has a holistic view to man and numerous species of flora and fauna in the ecosystem. Ecological citizenship pays attention to different species of living organisms, their relationships to the environment and humans. It also tries to establish more suitable manners. It seems that due to the value-oriented nature of ecological citizenship, human beings find more spiritual intelligence and can act better in order to achieve ecological citizenship. Therefore, in this study, spiritual intelligence and its dimensions are taken into consideration because, we assume citizens with high spiritual intelligence have more reasonable actions with regard to different species and their environment. they believe nature is intrinsically valuable not merely instrumentally. Material & Methods: In this study, the relationship between ecological citizenship and spiritual intelligence is done by using the survey method. Therefore, from the perspective of human ecology, New Ecological Paradigm and deep ecology is used. The survey instrument was a questionnaire that we borrowed from foreign researchers. Research population includes citizens over 15 years of age in Tabriz, of whom 670 were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling method. The face validity and construct validity are used to determine validity. The questionnaire was modified by consulting experts specialized in the field of environmental sociology. Also, factor analysis is used to investigate the order and structure of multivariate data. It is a method which aims at determining fundamental dimensions through analysis of covariance structure. The results of exploratory factor analysis show that, separation and classification of questions and items related to ecological citizenship are well done. The obtained KMO value (0.889) indicates the adequacy of the number of samples for meaningful analysis and also suggests that the separation of Bartlett's test was done properly. According to the results of factor analysis, 49 items are used to measure ecological citizenship, classified in 11 components that these 11 components have been able to explain about 60% of the variance of the ecological citizenship. Discussion of Results & Conclusions: The results show that ecological citizenship status of Tabriz citizens is in good condition, located somewhere among 4 and 5 in the 6-item Likert Scale. Also, among the 11 dimensions of ecological citizenship, all aspects are medium to high, but membership in environmental communities is the lowest. Also, the correlational tests show that there are positive and significant correlations between spiritual intelligence and its components and ecological citizenship (r=.363). Regression analysis results also show that from four dimensions of spiritual intelligence, the "holistic and faithfulness" and "moral individualities" could explain 27.5% of the variance of ecological citizenship. So, more than anything else, ecological citizenship is influenced by “holistic and faithfulness dimensions”. After that moral virtues component had the strongest effect on ecological citizenship (Beta.256). Also, the two components of “consciousness and love” and “deal with problems” ultimately did not have significant relationship with ecological citizenship and so were excluded from the regression model.
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