Pyscho-civic orientation of market women's political culture indicators in akinyele local government araes of oyo state

Abstract

Political Culture (PC), is basically the set of shared beliefs, values and attitudes that people in a society have about their government and how it works. However, reports have shown that there is marginalization of women in politics which resulted in low political culture. Previous studies focused largely on women’s participation in politics, voting behaviour and interest in politics with little attention paid to assessment of market women’s political culture. The study, therefore, investigated, pyscho-civic orientation of market women's political culture (Political Socialization-PS; Civic efficacy-CE and Political Participation-PP) indicators in Akinyele Local Government Areas of Oyo State. The study adopted descriptive research design. A total of 210 market women randomly selected from 4participated in the study. The instrument used were Political Socialisation (PS, r= 0.94), Civic Efficacy (CSS, r= 0.75), and Political Participation (PP, r= 0.92) scales. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics of frequency counts percentagem means and standard deviation. Participants’ age was 52±1.05 years, and 21.1% were between 50-54 years of age. CE (x̄=3.23), PS (x̄ = 2.79), PP (x̄ =2.84) was high against the threshold of 2.5. Political Culture of market woman (political socialization, level of market women civic efficacy, market women political participation, level of market women pollical beliefs and level of market women trusts in government) was high in Akinyele Local Government. Government should focus on improving these factors to improve women’s political culture and participation in politics among the market women.