Comparison of political awareness among شاهد (witness) and non-شاهد (non-witness) high school students in Isfahan province مقاله

چکیده:

The aim of this research was to compare the levels of political awareness between شاهد and non-شاهد high school students, conducted using a survey and cross-sectional method. The data for this study were collected from 192 high school students in Isfahan province in two groups. The شاهد students (96 people) were all enumerated, and the non-شاهد students (96 people) were selected randomly in proportion to the sample size of the شاهد group. These two groups of students then responded to a five-dimensional scale of political awareness. No significant difference was observed between the mean scores of the two groups of students (4.15 for شاهد students compared to 6.15 for non-شاهد students) regarding the overall level of political awareness, nor in terms of the subscales of political concepts, political institutions, political figures, political events, and political decisions. Hierarchical multiple regression results also showed that while socio-demographic variables (control variables) explained 14.8% of the variance in political awareness, the variable of student type had no contribution to explaining the variance in political awareness. Although the level of political awareness of the studied students is at a medium (baseline) level, this amount of awareness is very low for them to become politically competent citizens, according to political theoretical frameworks. The lack of difference in the degree of political awareness between the two studied groups calls into question the hypothesis of proponents of the classroom-based approach, which emphasizes the impact of school type and specific training, as well as the impact of extracurricular political education and school information environments, on differences in students' levels of political awareness. The results of this research also confirm the assumption that both groups are exposed to identical information dissemination and political educational programs.