Investigation of university academic staff?s and students? democracy perceptions in terms of sex, subject areas, academic hierarchy and political participaton variables in the context of political socialization

In this study, Cukurova University academic staff?s and students? democracyperceptions were investigated in terms of their sex, subject areas, levels of politicalparticipation and academic hierarchy variables in the context of political socialization.The study was conducted in 2004-2005 academic year at Cukurova Universitywith 160 official academic staffs and 600 students which were attending to CukurovaUniversity at the same period. To determine the democracy perceptions of academicstaffs and students, ?Perceptions of Democracy Scale? and to examine their levels ofpolitical participation, sex, subject areas and academic hierarchy, ?Politic ParticipationQuestionnaire? was administered.For the data which were obtained from the scale and questionnaire, frequencydistribution and Chi-square techniques were performed. In the analysis, the level ofsignificance was taken as p .05.Findings of the study which were reached by Perceptions of Democracy Scaleindicated that, academic staffs and students of Cukurova University are more prefer theliberal democracy than militant democracy. From the point of sex variable, it was foundthat, there were significant differences between girl and boy students and the rate ofgirls students which were prefer liberal democracy was higher then boy students. Butthere were no significant differences between academic staffs from the point of sex.Students? democracy perceptions also showed significant differences from the point ofsubject areas. The rate of students which prefer liberal democracy was highest in themedical sciences, then in the social sciences and at least in the applied sciences. Butthere were no significant differences between academic staffs from the point of subjectareas which they are study on, and from the point of their academic hierarchy.From the points of findings which were reached by Political ParticipationQuestionnaire, levels of political participation of academic staffs and students? ofCukurova University show a low profile in general. In this study, data were obtainedabout 17 different types of political participation, and 4 different types of being in anorganizational structure. In four different types of political participation there weresignificant differences between students? perceptions of democracy. The rate of studentswhich were prefer liberal democracy was higher then the rate of students which wereprefer the militant democracy. For all of political participation types, there were nosignificant differences between academic staffs from the point of their perceptions ofdemocracy. Only in one type of being in an organizational structure, the rate ofacademic staffs which have liberal democracy perception was higher and statistically,they were differ significantly from academic staffs which were prefer the militantdemocracy.As a result, in the case of Cukurova University, it can be said that the politicalsocialization process is work up effectively. Perceptions of democracy and levels ofpolitical participation of academic staffs and students are parallel. Political culturewhich formed by the university, provides that political socialization is working up in aliberal direction. On the other hand, the low level of political participation is obstructingthe thought to be transformed into behaviors in both academic staffs and studentsdimensions.Key Words: Militant democracy perception, Liberal democracy perception,Political participation, Political socialization, Perceptions of Democracy Scale, Highereducation