Measuring Modernism: Theoretical and Empirical Explorations

TLDR: In this paper, the coherence of the behavioral and attitudinal characteristics of individuals who have been exposed to modernizing influences such as urban residence and education was analyzed using data from married Turkish women in Ankara city and four villages.

Abstract: Among the many unresolved issues in the theoretical and empirical study of modernization is that of the unity of the modernizing process. This paper focuses on the coherence of the behavioral and attitudinal characteristics of individuals who have been exposed to modernizing influences such as urban residence and education. Six measures of modernism are used, and the analysis attempts to determine the overlap of each of these measures in the same individual. Using data from married Turkish women in Ankara city and four villages, it appears that each of the measures of modernism represents a distinct behavioral sphere, so that individuals may be modern in one sphere and traditional in another. A common denominator among the measures appears to lie in an "emancipation" complex, consisting of participation in mass media consumption and an egalitarian nuclear-family structure. When dealing with particular subpopulations or specific behavioral spheres, it may be necessary to treat modernism as a multifaceted p...