New Middle Class and Democratic Culture in Iran (Case Study: University Professors and Secondary School Teachers in Hamedan)

Lots of theorists and researchers, especially in the last few decades, have emphasized on the relationship between the democratic political system and new middle class size from one hand, and degree of Democratic values and Orientation among the members of this class. Also it is widely believed that tendency to democratic culture among new middle class exists at a high level. The question is whether such a situation is also visible in today's Iran society? In this study, the sense of tendency to democratic culture among university professors and secondary school teachers in Hamedan has been investigated. In this research, the rate of the tendency of these two social groups to democratic values has been measured by selecting a sample and using testing factors and a local standard questionnaire. The results show that tendency to normative dimensions of democracy between these two social groups, in total, is slightly more than the average (about 60 %) and tendency to behavioral dimensions of democracy is much less than the average (about 22 %). Hence, only about 39 percent of these two social groups have tendency to the sum of democratic values (both normative and behavioral). Thus, the article concluded that with regard to the social and political situation of these two social groups, tendency to democratic culture among Iranian new middle class, is likely to be, less than expected.