The Relationship between Citizen's Sense of Social Belonging and their Social, Cultural, and Political participation (case of study: Districts 3 and 12 of the city of Tehran

One of the main areas of development planning is to pay attention to the active and full participation of the residents and the factors and processes that encourage that participation. Individuals’ sense of social belonging is a major variable that can promote people’s participation in social, cultural and political affairs of their society, and this is especially important for third world countries that need the support and efforts of their citizens. In this regard, the present article investigates the relationship between citizens’ sense of social belonging and their social, cultural, and political participation. This is a survey research and the research population consisted of all the residents (ages 18 to 55) of District 3 and 12 of the city of Tehran, of which 382 individuals were selected as the sample via a multi-stage cluster sampling technique. The research instrument has face validity and the Cronbach’s coefficients for reliability for all the major variables were above 0.70. The results showed that there a significant and positive relationship between resident’s sense of social belonging and, social participation (r=0.59), cultural participation (0.44), political participation (r=0.46). Research results also indicated that residents’ level of cultural and political participation was more than their social participation, and that women had a stronger sense of social belonging than men. Type of occupation also was significantly related to social and political participation.