Analysis of the participation of villagers in the development of rural settlements in urban peripheral settlements (Case study: Khoshkbijar city, Rasht County)

Today, the importance of the effective role of the people and their participation in the movement towards rural development is not hidden from anyone. People's participation is the main and pivotal solution to achieve the desired development pattern or the correct use of resources and opportunities and fair distribution of facilities. The purpose of this study is to measure the participation of villagers in the development of rural settlements in Khoshbijar, Rasht Township. Accordingly, an investigation on 386 people of villagers in 21 sample villages of “Khoshk-e Bijar” in Rasht has carried out, in which, two documentary methods (the library) and field study, by using questionnaire, have been applied to determine the participation of sample villages. To achieve this goal, after preparing questionnaire, and investigating its validity and reliability and the number of Cronbach’s alpha (0.88), questionnaires have been distributed among people of sample villages, and their results have been used to confirm or reject hypothesizes. To test hypothesis, the components of education level, household economic status, satisfaction rate, and participation of villagers, in rural development process, have been used through the Wilcoxon, Spearman correlation, and Kruskal-Wallis test. Performed studies indicate that, in the field of study, in addition to villagers’ potentials and participation context in rural development, there is some limitations and problems in economic, social, cultural, and political dimensions, which villagers to active participation, will encounter them, that resolving each of them needs applying essential strategies. Above mentioned operations require providing strategy and planning, based on available capabilities in desired rural areas.