Social Apathy of the Youth and the Cultural-Social Rupture (A Survey on Youth in Bookan City)

Social apathy, as a social problem, presents a barrier to political and social participation. Hence, it becomes increasingly important to closely investigate the indifference among young people as one of the most influential groups in the social and political dynamism in the Iranian society. The current research is to study the extent and the dimensions of social apathy among the youth, from the perspective of social consensus, within the framework of Robert Merton's theoretical system. The study comprises a survey on 400 young people aged between 19-30 whom were interviewed. The findings showed that social apathy is low in 41% of the young people, moderate in 30% and high in 29%. Among the various dimensions of social apathy, objective indifference is rated higher than subjective social apathy. The multivariate regression analysis showed that the social apathy of the youth is directly related to the severity of the relationship with such variables as normative rupture, value rupture, and socio-economic status. The aforementioned variables account for 58.2% of social variation among the youth. Finally, the implications of the findings and the results of the research as pertinent to social and cultural policy-making have been discussed.