The Mean Difference of Religiosity between Residents of Rural Areas and Urban Areas of Mahmoudabad City

The main objective of this research is to study the mean difference of religiosity between the residents of rural areas and urban areas of Mahmoudabad City. For the measure of religiosity, Glock and Stark's (1965) model of religiosity is used. For the analysis of the theoretical perspectives, theories of IbnKhaldun, Tonnies, Durkheim, Giddens and Martin are used. The statistical population of the research consists of samples are 400 people. Half of the sample is from rural areas and the other half are from urban areas. This research is conducted based upon survey. The data obtained from the survey is described and analyzed by using SPSS software. The statistical methods are demonstrated and analyzed in two parts of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The findings of the research show that there is a significant difference in belief and ritual dimensions of religiosity between rural residents and urban residents. The levels of belief and ritual dimensions of religiosity are higher in rural residents in comparison with urban residents. In addition, among sub-dimensions of ritual religiosity, only intellectual religiosity has no significant difference between rural and urban residents. Moreover, the level of religiosity of total urban residents and rural residents has a significant difference and the level of religiosity in rural residents is higher than urban residents.


Introduction and Problem Statement
It's obvious that religion as a transcendent value plays an important role in forming and causing some morale and some consequences in social life of people.Perhaps the most important consequence of religion in society is "the consolidation of social relations of people" (Rabbani & Taheri, 2010, p. 93).It could be admitted that religion is a phenomenon that might have influence on society, its structure and its affairs besides being effected by them.Thus, religion is a social phenomenon for sociologists."As long as there is religion in one's belief and attachment, it is considered as an individual affair, but when it is manifested in norms, beliefs and social practices, when it affects social life and also when it has social functions, it is considered as a social phenomenon" (Kalantari, 2012, p. 175).Religion, alongside, government, economics, education, and family form are the five primitive basic social institutions in every community.Like other basic social institutions, religion has the following characteristics: generality, continuity, universality, meeting the basic needs of people.First, the institution of religion is a public and primitive institution common in all human societies.Second, the necessity of the institution of religion in society is vital and crucial.Third, the institution of religion is of great antiquity and its formation is synonymous with the formation of the human society.Fourth, this institution has existed before one's birth and also after one's birth, so they face it at his birth.Fifth, this institution changes slowly, but it never disappears because it's necessary for social life in human society (Sadrabadi & Meymandi, 2010, p. 135).But, in spite of social and individual functions of religion, the global expansion of modernism, the growth of modern science and the rationality of modernism led the way of human thinking and its view of self, the world, religion and changing values (Kalantari, 2012, p. 176).In addition, researchers and sociologists think that urban revolution is another factor that led to the change of people's way of thinking.In 19 th and 20 th century, as a result of industrial revolution, many people migrated and urbanization along with social changes in which happened after industrial and political revolutions had a deep impact on religious beliefs.Iran, just like other countries, had a growth in its urban population.Based in (1390), nearly 71.5 percent of people lived in urban areas.Given the fact that urbanization is a dynamic process in which we can see a kind of transmission and movement, the transmission of population to urban areas leads to changes in economic functions and in lifestyle of normative and value system (Ghaffari & Louyeh, 2010, p. 276).The residents of rural areas who happened to be able to maintain their traditional values are different in their level of religiosity and their type of religiosity in comparison with the residents of urban areas.In this research, we try to answer this question of the difference.

Literature Review
Mahdavi and others (1389) conducted a research as "Identifying religiosity levels and compares it among different groups of Tehran citizens."The statistical population of the research was Tehran's citizens.Sample size was 391 people and the sampling method was based on the combination of cluster and stratified sampling.The research method was based on survey.The results of this research indicate that there is no difference of religiosity between men and women and between citizens of Tehran and other cities in Iran.However there is significant difference between different ages, single or married people, level of education and different places of residence.Ahmadi (1388) conducted research as "The state of religiosity and the attitude toward the future of religion among generations (case study: Sanandaj City)" in order to study the level of adherence to religion.The statistical population consisted of citizens between 18 to 29 year-olds and citizens of the age of 40 and older of three regions of Sanandaj City.Sample size was 360 people and the method of sampling was based on clustering multistage technique.The research was conducted through survey.The results of this research show the appropriate rank of the young folks and the adults in terms of the level of religiosity as the overall indicator.As it was expected, however, the rank of adult generation is above the young generation.In addition, there is significant difference in ritual and application dimension of religiosity and in the attitude toward the future of religion among the young generation and the adult generation.Nonetheless, there isn't significant difference in the belief dimension of religiosity and in regarding people being religious in the future among the two generations.But, in terms of attitude toward the future of religion, the opinion of the adult generation was more negative than the young generation.
Kalaki conducted research in 2008 as "the comparative study of the level of young people's religiosity and its dimensions in three social statuses of higher class, middle class and lower class."The statistics population was the young people of Juybar City.The sample size of the research was 376 people and the sampling method was quota technique.The descriptive method of research was based on survey.One of variables that are implemented in this research is the location of people.Results in descriptive section indicate that the level of religious knowledge and religious tendency of young people were high.Accordingly, the correlation between their social status and religiosity was regarded as being positive.However, the place of religiosity in the three social statuses shows that young people from lower class and middle class are more religious in comparison with upper class young people.Imanpour and Soroush (1381) conducted research as "the study of effective factors on religious identity of young people in Shiraz City" in order to determine the most effective factors on religious identity of young people in Shiraz.The statistical population of this research is the young people of Shiraz.The sample size is 383 people and the sampling method on based on clustering method and the method of research was based on survey.The results of this research indicate that sexuality, the level of religiosity of parents and friends and the level of secularism were the most effective factors in religious identity of young people.The analysis of a few variables shows that among these factors, friends and the level of religiosity had the biggest effect on religious identity of young people and after this stands secularism.
Tony Walter and Grace Davis (2005) wrote essay as "The religiosity of women in the modern West" in order to ascertain the causes of women being more religious.They pointed out that women are more religious than men on virtually every measure.This fact is obvious not only in the indicators such as attending the church and private worship, but also in the content of religiosity.Even formal religious participation is higher among women.
"Changes in religious beliefs" is the title of the research conducted by Pilginton (1976).In fact it was a comparative study on changes in religious practices and religious beliefs in an eleven -year period from 1961 to 1972.The results indicated that in 1962, nearly three-quarters of university students had a form or a kind of religious belief.,This scale, however, is diminished to half until 1972.The results represent a significant collective tendency among university student to keep out of religion's way.

Theoretical Framework
Ibn Khaldun believes that people's personality is shaped through their form of living.He preferred Bedouin life over urbanization and thinks of Asabyya as the very special characteristic of the Bedouin people.He says: Asabyya only creates in Bedouin and cannot survive without it.
"In his opinion Asabyya is consisted of: courage, religiosity, morality, blood connections, generosity, dare and temerity.IbnKhaldun places an important role for religiosity in the creation of government and thus says that religion enhances the power of Asabyya and thinks of urbanization as the factor of the decline of religion and government" (Alimardani, 2009, p. 227).He mentions the followings in his critique of cultural features of urban residents: 1) The fall of religious rituals among urban residents 2) The governance of vulgarity and luxury-seeking among citizens 3) The incapability of urban residents in confronting with destructive cultural factors 4) The fall of acceptable religious values among urban residents 5) The fall of spirituality against materiality 6) The weakenting of the city cultural foundations as a result of the clash of social classes IbnKhaldun believes that humans are creating their environment, their conditions and their lives.Therefore when humans accepted urban life and resided in the city, the city persuades humans to follow the city while the city imposes its characteristics such as luxury, dependence, prodigality, welfare and amusement.In this ideological system, lifestyle, luxury-seeking, wealth, welfare and security of the new organizations, new environment and all of urban phenomenon, make a primitive human a completely different person.He thinks that urban residents little by little forget religious rituals and religious teachings and they step away from practices.In this case, Asabyya is formed based on profit and self-interest, so blood connections and patriotism will be forgotten (Alimardani, 2006, pp. 111-112).
Tonnies in his book "community and civil society" has worked on the contrast of two types of lives, game in schaft or community and gesell schaft or society.In his viewpoint, community is corresponded with village or life form before city which its main specifications are: 1) Family or kinship group as the basic unit of social organization 2) Crystallization of social control through family ties and neighborhood 3) Social cohesion based on social relations which are defined by personal relations; emotional relations and close relations 4) Religion and mores fulfill social control On the other hand, society is corresponded with city and urbanization which its main specifications are: 1) The emergence of new structural forms in the organization of economic; 2) Social relations based on efficiency and rationality and discharge of personal relations, emotional relations and close relations; 3) Simplified social interactions.Not deep social interactions.4) People's dependence to institutions through institutional aids (Formal social control) 5) Law and contract fulfill social control (Fakouhi, 2007, p. 175).
Among the subjects that Tonnies raised in his gameinschaft and gesellscchaft, trust, religiosity and religious values are in these two classes.Based on his logic, relations based on trust only exist in the community.In his opinion, trust does not come out of nowhere.Trust is the base of social cohesion and religious values and moral values existing in these communities reinforce and also facilitate those relations.In contrast, self-oriented and careful modern people cannot be trusted (Ketabi et al., 2010, p. 101).Thus we can say that rations based on trust and religious values and religiosity that existed in traditional communities, are replaced with efficiency, rationality and law in the modern and urban society.
Durkheim in his book "Division of Labor" is seeking for the answer of this question that how a collection of people can form a society.Durkheim separates two forms of correlation in order to answer this question (Aaron, 2008, p. 361).Accordingly, he distinguishes two types of society from each other: community sector or traditional community which is unified through mechanical correlation and organized societies or modern societies whose specification is organic correlation.
Primitive communities have a simple unified social structure.In these communities there is a social force that links the whole community to each other as s coherent whole and an identifiable whole.Durkheim believes that this social force, in primitive and traditional communities is the very common culture which has religious foundation.In the primitive culture, most people have common beliefs, values and norms.Furthermore, since primitive humans were not able to realize the social and the natural forces that had shaped their lives, they thought that the universe is under the control of supernatural forces which made religion the core of primitive culture.Primitive humans assume human order as a holy order loaded with supernatural creations.Precisely, this religious culture unifies distinct social components as a coherent social whole (Seidman,p. 51).In modern and industrial societies, however, that urbanization is one characteristic that is different from primitive communities.The organic correlation is not gain through the resemblances of society's members but through their differences.This kind of correlation is due to division of labor (Coser, 2008, p. 190).It's been said that the modern characteristic of social structure is completely differentiated by this.While fundamental units in primitive communities have a close functional and structural resemblance, they are differentiated in modern societies.There are various specialized institutions such as economics, politics, family, social security, army and educational intuitions so that each one of them regulate and adjust only a part of people's behaviors replacing the large and pervasive multi-functional kinship groups.The more people have freedom in forming their own thoughts, the less the range of their common culture would be.Moreover, the common beliefs and values would be completely general and abstract.In fact, Durkheim came to this conclusion that with the development of modern culture, individualism will be one of our few common beliefs.Modern societies make the individual a holy thing and individualism is indeed our general religion.By placing the individual in the place of God, the modern culture steps into the bushes of secularism.Unlike traditional culture, it depicts a human-oriented picture of the world (Seidman,.Durkheim believed that in religions, religious beliefs are not that important and what is actually important is the practice of religion.Indeed, practice and ritual of religion are the most concrete part of religion.He considers the issues of modern life such as urbanization as the fall of moral authority (for instance, religion).He claimed that the cause of many of confusions in a modern society is that people have lost their faith in a common belief system and they are following their own interests and thus, they overlook their own fellows (Hashemifard & Hashemian, 2012, p. 174).
The key to understanding Giddens (1989) thoughts on religion lies in the theory of late modernity and its criticism of classic sociology.In this point of view, modernity has two stages: Early modernity and late modernity.In each of them, the interaction of religion and modernity was not the same.He regards a twofold function and impact for religion.Unlike Marx, he doesn't relate religion to social inequalities and power, but in his view, religion may raise in such societies.Just like Weber he believes that religion is not always a conservative force, but religious ideals may drive social change.He accepts Durkheim's view that religion may bring social cohesion, but he believes that religion and the beliefs related to it may lead to tension, conflict and separation in society, however, in his point of view, religious beliefs provide a kind of shelter from life's adversity.Giddens (1989) chooses a functional definition of religion.Religion is a cultural system consisted of common beliefs and rituals that creating a holy and supernatural picture of reality, transfers a perception of meaning and ultimate purpose.Based on this definition, religion has the following functions: 1) Giving identity: culture is a set of beliefs, values, norms and common concepts that create a common identity among the members of the group.Religion, as a form of culture, has all of these characteristics.
2) Giving social solidarity: religion has ritual practices that are rooted in religious beliefs and believers think of themselves as the members of religious community by their participation.
3) Giving meaning: Religion gives a definitive explanation for things which are beyond people's everyday life or for things which affect everyday life and this explanation are somehow unique since other cultural aspects cannot propose such explanation.Giddens (1989) defines secularism in this way: a process in which religion loses its influence on different parts of life.In other words, secularism is the process of the transformation and change of religion and religiosity based on the effect of modernity; however, he accepts that religious skeptics have existed in all of the cultures.He thinks that today's religious belief is weaker than it was in the world before modernism (Ibid, p. 108).
David Martin, an English sociologist, worked on secularism and the fall of the influence of religion and its effective factors on the modern world.He sought to change the traditional concepts of secularism by a lot of empirical studies.He not only disagreed with the concept of secularization as a linear and irreversible process, but also disagreed with the concept of secularization as a complex and vague flow.By his study on various patterns of secularism, he came to this result that except for religious monopoly, it is the inherent character of a religious tradition that affects the modality and the type of secularism.In his point of view, the empirical evidence proves that secularism is related to industrialization, proletarization, urbanization, social mobility and institutional differentiation that means the fragmentary of religious role of an individual (Kohan et al., 2010, p. 141).As it has been observed, Martin regards urbanization as one of the effective factors of secularism.Glock and Stark (1965) are among those theorists who elaboration a new model of religiosity.Glock raised the discussion of religious commitment or religiosity in order to explain religiosity in America.He developed this discussion in 1962 and with cooperation of Stark, elaborated it in 1965.Their main objective was generally to understand practices by which people would regard themselves as religious.In their view, all the world religions, despite being so different in their details, have general areas that religiosity is manifested in them.These areas can be considered as the main dimensions of religiosity.Glock specifies five dimensions for religiosity: experience (spiritual life, every experience that is called a religious experience), practice (rituals performed as religious duties), belief (is based more on religious beliefs rather than feeling and emotion), knowledge (understanding the dogmatic principles and the holy scriptures) and finally consequence (consequences of religious practices and beliefs in all aspects of life (Kalaki, 2008, p. 120).

Research Hypothesis
1) It seems that there is significant difference in a relief dimension of religiosity among rural residents and urban residents.
2) It seems that there is significant difference in consequence dimension of religiosity among rural residents and urban residents.
3) It seems that there is significant difference in total indicator of religiosity among rural residents and urban residents.

Methodology
The quantitative method of this research is applied through survey which provided the data of this research.The statistics population of this research is all the 15 year-olds and older people of Mahmoudabad City which based on statistical website are 71220 Individuals.In order to calculate the sample size, the Cochran formula is used and based on it.The number of sample was 383, to enhance the accuracy of sampling.Finally 400 surveys were studied, 200 of surveys were related to rural areas and the other 200 were related to urban areas.The sampling method was based on multi-stage clustering method.

Religiosity
It means the subjective and practical commitment to religious beliefs.In other words let's say that following religion is one of its subset (Ahmadi, 2009, p. 29) Religiosity is the pertly reception or fully reception of beliefs, rituals and religious orders in a way in which the person is committed to follow them (Afshani & others, 2010, p. 29).
To clarify the concept of religiosity we can identify its dimensions.Understanding the dimensions of religiosity helps us to come to an appropriate realization of the concept of religiosity.The Glock and Stark model of religiosity is the first model that many other models of religiosity that came after, owe it.This model is also acknowledged in Iran and has been used in some research on measure of religiosity as the theoretical frame.(Ahmadi, 2009, p. 29).The five dimensions of religiosity in Glock and Stark's views are these:

Ideological Dimension
It is more based on beliefs rather than emotions.It is the beliefs of the believers of a particular religion.In fact religious beliefs are a kind of religious understanding that gives to the believer kind of an insight into the rightfulness of religious principles (Rabbani & Taheri, 2009, p. 105).

Ritual Dimension
It is all the particular religious practices such as prayer, fast and participation in religious rituals which are believers are expected to practice.Worship and prayer are individual and private practices that people do without obligation.

Experience Dimension
It is related to emotions, ideas and feelings about having a relationship with the essence of celestial which is God or an ultimate truth and reality or supreme authority.

Knowledge or Cognitive Dimension
It is the information and the basic knowledge about the beliefs of every religion that the followers should know them.In fact it is the minimal recognition of principles, minutiae, traditions and history of religion so that an individual would commit himself to religious practices (Rabbani & Taheri, 2009, p. 106).
Consequential dimension: It is the effects of beliefs, practices, religious experiences and religious knowledge on everyday life.In other words, it is the religious reflection of our behavior in our everyday life (Afshani, 2010, p. 202).
In this research, in order to show the practical definition of religiosity, the model of Glock and Stark (1965) is used because of its relatively compatibility with the dimensions of religiosity in Islam and its functional proportion that is approved by contemporary prominent Islamic scholars (Rabbani & Taheri, 2009, p. 105).In this research the ideological dimension and consequential dimension of religiosity are surveyed and the consequential dimension is formed from emotional dimension, ritual dimension and moral dimension.All the Items related to different dimensions of religiosity are arranged like Likert scale which have six answers (Never, seldom, slight, somewhat, much, very much).The operational definition of this variable is given in Table 1.

Urbanization
Urbanization is the process by which the proportion of urban population is always increased with the development of communication networks, economical activities, political and administrative organizations in urban areas (Azkia & Ghaffari, 2009, p. 100).Needless to say that urbanization is not known only with the statistics of urban growth and the increase of the proportion of the population living in urban areas.Urbanization always brings primarily two changes.A population change which is an obvious change and it can be shown by measures like the rate of migration from rural areas to urban areas and the rate of urbanity.The second is a change in the lifestyle and the system of values and norms that first, it is less sizable or remarkable and second, showing it in quantitative scales is not possible because this kind of change is more related to sociology and is required to be analyzed in this field (Ghaffari & Louyeh, 2011, p. 276).In this research people who were born in urban areas and live there are surveyed as the urban resident population.

Validity and Reliability of Research Tools
Table2 In this research, for estimating the reliability of variables, Cronbach's alpha is used.As it is shown in Table 2 the coefficient of Cronbach's alpha for the research's data is acceptable.To make sure that Items are intelligible and apprehensible, face validity is used which means the survey is conducted by consultation with professors of this zone.

Findings
The number of samples in this research is 400 among which 35 percent of urban respondents were women and the other 65 percent were men and also 36.5 percent of rural respondents were women and the other 63.5 percent of respondents were men.Considering marital status, 51 percent of urban respondents were single and the other 49 percent of respondents were married.41.5 percent of rural respondents were single and the other 58.5 percent of respondents were married.53 percent of urban respondents were employed and the other 47 percent of respondents were unemployed while 76 percent of rural respondents were employed and the other 24 percent of respondents were unemployed.Statistical analysis shows that the average of ideological religiosity of people in urban areas was 4.76 and in rural areas were 4.85.The significance level of t-test shows that they have significance difference in the level of ideological religiosity.In addition, it shows that the level of ideological religiosity of rural residents is higher than urban residents.The findings of Table 5 show that from the three mentioned dimensions of consequential religiosity, emotional dimension of rural residents (4.22) was higher than urban residents (4.19).This difference, however, is not significant.It means that the emotional dimension of religiosity in rural and urban residents is almost equal in statistical population.In other studied dimensions, the difference is significance.It means that the ritual and moral religiosity of rural residents is significantly higher than urban residents.The findings of table 6 which have compared the difference of the average of dimensions of religiosity between men and women show that the ideological religiosity of women (4.93) is significantly higher than men (4.80) in urban areas.In other dimensions, the difference was not significance.In addition, although in the statistical sample (rural and urban resident) the ideological religiosity and consequential religiosity of women were higher than men.These differences are not significant.Therefore, the ideological and consequential religiosity of men and women in rural areas are almost equal.The findings of table 7 show that the level of respondent's religiosity living in rural areas (M=4.27) is higher than respondents of urban areas (M=4.13) and this difference is significant.Therefore, the level of religiosity rural residents is higher than that of urban.

Conclusions and Discussion
Religion is an innate need of humanity's religion in an individual dimension, answers the ultimate questions of humanity.In dimension, it unities and organizes the whole society.Needless to say that religion, as a transcendental value, plays the main role in forming some morale and performances in social lives of people.One of the most important consequences of religion in society is the consolidation of social interactions and social relations.This research is conducted to estimate the difference of religiosity between rural residents and urban residents.The samples of this research were 15 year-olds and older people of Mahmoudabad City.The sample size of this research, based on Cochran formula, is 400 people among which 200 people were from rural areas and 200 people were from urban areas.The method of sampling of research was multi-stage clustering.The theories of IbnKhaldun, Tonnies, Durkheim, Giddens, Martin, Glock and Stark are used as the theoretical framework of research.
The results of research show that the level consequential religiosity of rural residents (M= 4.85) is higher than urban residents (M=4.76) and the difference is significant.Hence, we can say that the first hypothesis of research (The difference of the level of ideological religiosity in rural and urban residents) is proved.IbnKhaldun in discussing about ideological religiosity says that religious people believe in the judgment day, Heaven, Inferno, Hell, Angels, Jinn, revelation and prophecy and Asabyya based on kinship and religion.In his view, the fact that the power and the importance of Asabyya based on realistic or unrealistic kinship and common life is on the edge of distinction is the most important characteristic of the new society.In this society, the governing state tries to replace traditional relations with efficient administration in order to run various organizations of the government.
In his point of view, lots of changes in society take place and materialism steps away from spiritual values (Firouzjah & Sohrabi, 2011, p. 29).
Other results of this research show that from the dimensions of consequential religiosity, the emotional dimension was not significant between rural and urban residents, but in other dimensions (moral and ritual) the difference is significant.These findings supported with Durkheim's theory which is based on the fact that the thing which is important is the practice of religion (ritual dimension) and we can see its fall in a modern society.
In addition, the overall level of the consequential religiosity of rural residents (M= 3.70) is higher than urban residents (M= 3.49) and this difference is significant.This finding proves the second hypothesis.Therefore we can claim that the second hypothesis of research (the significant difference of the level of consequential religiosity in rural residents and urban residents) is proved.
The other hypothesis of the research was that there is a significant difference between rural residents and urban residents regarding their overall religiosity.By surveying the overall religiosity, significant difference between the two groups was observed.In other words, the religiosity level of rural residents (M= 4.27) is higher than urban residents (M=4.13).Hence, the mentioned hypothesis is also proved.This finding alighns with the results of the research of Afshahin et al. (2011) in Hamadan.
In order to explain this difference, we can point out Durkheim and Simmel's opinion.Durkheim says that in societies which are in transition, some situations occur and as a result, these situations cause a social morality kind of a chaos mode.Therefore the moral values of life do not correspond with materialistic modern life and the collective spirit is not efficient in modulating human's passions.In addition, individualism is another point which simultaneously can develop creativity and thoughts, but too much emphasis on it may form some norms that encourage the development of individual unlimited wishes.In other words, these characteristics occur more in modern and urban societies (Momtaz, 2003).
On the other hand, "Simmel" in his great essay known as "The Metropolis and Mental Life" studies the people who live in cities.He does not lash criticism on the new life condition, but he points out its limitations.He takes the effects of the high population and the extended society in urban life into consideration.He draws attention toward the alienation and the separation of humans in metropolis to the fall of a sense of altruism and also the coarseness of culture.This is called them the modern lifestyle.In Simmel's view, metropolis is the center of monetary economics which is in touch with rationality and realism based on calculation of phenomenon.The person who bases himself upon rationality is somehow indifferent to phenomenon and does not much involve his personal and emotional relationships.This person is indifferent and alien to the world around and separation or distance is a main dimension of sociability in urban areas.In rural areas, the emotional relations exist in the unconscious dimensions of psyche and their everyday life is facilitated through customs and habit (Momtaz, 2012).

Table 1 .
Operational definition of religiosity variable

Table 3 .
Frequency distribution and percentage of respondents based on independent variables

Table 4 .
Difference of ideological religiosity mean based on place of living (location)

Table 5 .
Difference of consequential religiosity mean based on place of living (location)

Table 6 .
Religiosity difference based on sexuality

Table 7 .
Religiosity difference based on place of living (location)