Investigating the Relationship between Learning City and the Level of Citizens' Participation in Different Fields( Case Study: Qazvin, Iran)

Today, level of knowledge and awareness is one of the most effective factors in promoting the level of citizens' participation in different activities. Comprehensive, universal, and lifelong learning are concepts to be realized in a place that is commonly interpreted as a learning city. In this study, the dimensions and components of a learning city were firstly identified through examining the documentary sources and subsequently these dimensions and components were completed. Accordingly, three dimensions of the learning city, namely the context, space, and domain of learning, were worked out and through descriptive-analytic method and elite survey, the most important elements of each dimension were identified. In the next step, using a survey of 360 persons from the statistical population selected from the citizens of Qazvin the city, the relationship between these components and these citizens' social, economic, and scientific participation was examined. Using the Tao B. Kendall correlation test and SPSS software, our findings showed that there is a significant relationship between the two variables. These findings also indicated that social participation has a significant relationship with formal education, physical-psychological and political-institutional and economic contexts and learning contexts while economic participation has such a relationship with formal education, cultural and political-institutional contexts and lifelong learning. Also, scientific participation is significantly associated only with formal education and cultural, technological, and physical-psychological contexts.