افسانه یوسفی آقابین

Participation is a process in which people involved to make endeavors aiming at a common goal; and they do this actively, freely with awareness and accountability. Women participation as one of the principles for development can be studied from different perspectives. The objective of the present study is to investigate social and cultural factors influencing social participation of rural women in the developmental process. The theories of experts in modernism domain in general and feminism theories like liberal feminism in particular, are theoretical bases of this study. This research was conducted through interviews (during October 2002 to May 2003) in one of the villages of Azerbaijan Sharghi province; where 155 women with the average of 15-60 were selected as subjects whose answers were then analyzed. The average rate of social participation of rural women based on this research is shown to be low and only 4 percent of respondents had a high participation rate. Their type of participation was mainly traditional and religious including participation in birth anniversary, religious get-to-gether and health houses; it in fact manifests a kind of passive participation. However, based on the data there was a correlation between the social participation of rural women and variables relevant to women’s attitude and self-concept (internal factors), age, education (background factors), their access level to urban centers, and the media (structural factors).