Rural-urban differences among nicaguaran university students

Resumo

The study was conducted with data from the student body of the University of Nicaragua in 1972.

The purpose of the study was to compare the rural and urban university students in relation to some social indicators such as attitude toward social change family patterns, religious affiliation and political preference. 

Tabular analysis was used and the Chi square test to determine the level of significance of the reiations among the variables.

In relation to family size there not significant differences between students’ of rural and urban backgrounds. The fact of having siblings outside the family was not a significant difference either. There was a tendency, however, for rural males is to have more children outside the than urbans.

Even though the Catholic students show a perceptible attachment to the Church, their number is substantially lower than the national average. (Some T4% of the students are Catholic, vs. 95% of the national population.) Thus the Catholic Church may well be losing its more educated members. The high percentage of students with a radical attitude toward social issues, as well as the relatively high attendance at church, seems to indicate that the student universe in Nicaragua may hold divergent opinions between the social and religious values. It could be possible for the immediate future that the Church will find it very difficult to maintain its influence in religious aspects without committing itself in the social ones.

In spite of 95 percent of the students being favorable to overall social change, only 1/3 of the student body favors violent means to achieve this change. On the other hand the students as a whole are less interested in political parties than Argentinian students.

Among the students interested in politics those from rural areas identify more with traditional parties than students from urban areas. The «urbanos» tend to give more support to leftist political parties. The chisquare test,. however, showed no significant differences between the rural and urban students in relation to radicalism.