The purpose of this study is measurement of social and political participation of youth and to identify the most important social and cultural factors affecting it and finally provide a model for them. Theoretical framework of study is structuration theory of Giddens. This theory along with an evaluation of internal and external researches in the field of political and social participation of young people, a theoretical model was introduced which contained independent variables and underlying socialization and some interface variables such as social capital, identity and lifestyle that will impact on participation. Statistical population for this research was youth (15 to 29 years) residing in urban areas of Shiraz. Respondents were divided into two groups aged 19-15 years and 29-20 years and variables were operationalized according to age and condition of the two age groups in the form of two questionnaires. Considering the population of these two age groups in Shiraz and Line tables, data was collected from 294 adolescents and 594 young adults (aged 29-20 years) and the results is analyzed separately for each age group.
The results show that at first, level of political and social participation of young people was very low and the existing participation is mostly passive and secondly demographic factors such as age, sex and family education and socioeconomic status which had the effect on participation in the most past researches, didn’t show any significant relationship or impact on participation in our study. Factors affecting the participation of two age groups were different. Political and social participation of lower age group mostly affected by socialization factors and background and demographic factors and intermediate variables were not related with the amount and type of participation, but for the other group, identity and some types of lifestyle, have some correlated with participation rates and enter the models. Because identity has find its shape and individuals make some life choices in this period or life.
In this study, models for social and political participation are presented in two age groups. Finally, researcher made some suggestions for increasing social and political participation of youth and future researches and also some of the limitations of research have been mentioned.