Investigating Social Factors Affecting the Social and Political Participation (18 and Above Years Old Citizens of Karaj)

Social and political participation as essential feature of modernism is very important in modern societies. So participation (in all form of it including political, social, economic and cultural) is one of the main concepts of sociology and political science. The present study is a quantitative one which aims at examining the social factors affecting socio-political participation. The survey was conducted with a sample of 400 residents of Karaj in 2012. Data was collected through self-constructed questionnaire. The data were analyzed using multivariate liner regression, T. test, multiple regression and path analysis. Results of multiple regression analysis show that among independent variables the political satisfaction (beta = 0.33), the newspaper reading (beta = 0.25), the religiosity (beta = 0.19), and watching satellite (beta = 0.15), have significant effects on participation rate. Totally, independent variables of this study explain 0.41 of the variation of sociopolitical participation. In general, the results of study support the theoretical framework the study was based on.