A Sociological Study of Teachers’ Social Participation and Factors Affecting it

Social participation, as a voluntary, conscious, and collective process with definite goals, plays a key role in social development. In this article, an attempt was made to describe teachers’ social participation and identify social and background variables affecting it through a sociological approach. The present survey was conducted by administering a questionnaire to teachers in Takab in West Azerbaijan Province. Proportionate stratified sampling method was utilized to draw a sample of 255 teachers that then were interviewed. The findings indicated that the level of teachers’ social participation was not desirable and was lower than average in the measured components, i.e., participation in activities serving the public interest, participation in urban and community activities, and membership in non-governmental organizations. Moreover, the results showed that the indicators of social cohesion, feeling powerless, age, and desire to progress had the highest influence on teachers’ social participation, respectively and they accounted for more than 40 percent of variance in social participation.