A Survey Research on the Political Culture Orientations of Teachers and Its Factors

The political culture in current societies, in general, and in a transitional society such as Iran, in particular, has a critical role in the development of civic and political participation; and in this respect, elites and middle class have a crucial role in the creation and solidification of democratic political culture. Within the conceptual framework of Tessler, the current study is an attempt to investigate the political culture orientations among teachers and other concomitant factors. This study is a survey during which 310 teachers in Boukan were interviewed. In terms of cognitive dimensions (political pluralism) and the extent of involvement dimensions (practical involvement in politics) in political culture, the mean political culture among the teachers was average. Results of the present study indicated that 54.5 percent of the teachers had a democratic political culture, 17.8 percent were indifferent toward political culture, 15.5 percent had an activist political culture, and 11.3 percent had a limited political culture. Explanatory findings showed that there is a direct relationship between the teachers’ political culture and variables such age, socioeconomic status, experiences of political participation, and ethno-religious orientations. Also multivariate regression analysis indicated that these variables determined 52 percent of the variation in the political culture orientations among teachers.