The Relationship between Social Participation and Sense of Security among Women in Ilam City

The current study has been carried out in order to evaluate and investigate the relationship between women’s social participation and their sense of security in Ilam City. This descriptive analytical study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The statistical population of the study includes all the 18-year-old and older women currently living in Ilam City and the size of the sample at the qualitative stage was 20 participants, selected using the snowball sampling method, and the size of the sample for the quantitative stage was 400 participants determined by Cochran’s formula and selected using multi-stage cluster sampling method. At the first stage, i.e. the qualitative stage, the required data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire and at the second stage, i.e. the quantitative stage, the required data were gathered through a questionnaire designed by extracting items from the interviews of the qualitative stage. The validity of the questionnaires was determined using content validity and their reliability was measured using Cronbach’s alpha, which resulted in coefficients equal to 0.92 and 0.72 for the questionnaire on social participation and the questionnaire on sense of security, respectively. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS software application. The findings of the study show that there is a significant relationship between the two variables of social participation and sense of security. Moreover, there is a significant relationship between various components of social participation, including public participation, political participation, and association participation, and sense of security.