The Effect of Public Awareness and Social Cohesion on the Social Participation of Women (Case study: Female Students from Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran)

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to study the impact of public awareness and social cohesion on social participation of women in Iran. Since women constitute half of the population, their participation in political, economic, social and cultural areas can play an important role in community development. The study employs modernization approach as the conceptual framework and data collection is based on field and library methods. The target population included 26,742 female students of Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch of Tehran, out of which 480 individuals were selected as the study sample based on simple random sampling. To analyze the data in the inferential statistics section, the coefficient of TB and TC in the ordinal measurement level were first computed and then, due to promotion of the measurement level from ordinal to interval, Pearson coefficient correlation and multiple and univariate regressions were employed to assess the effects of the collective and simultaneous independent variables on the dependent variable. Analysis of variance was used to verify hypotheses and statistical significance of the effects of the variables. The findings showed that the research hypotheses, including universality, solidarity and interaction with others, socio-economic status, public awareness, and the research assumptions were all confirmed at a significance level of 0.0001.