Ahmed Kudheir Hussein / Director of the Social Studies Department at Al-Bayan Center for Planning and Studies.
Idea and Context (Systematic Framing):
The interests and the associated activities and favorite hobbies practiced by young people are at the forefront of the priorities that should be focused on in light of the social and cultural threats and risks. The interests of Iraqi youth are linked to drawing a picture of their reality and their future, at a time when young people constitute the majority of the population in Iraqi society, which makes the change in the social and cultural characteristics of this group have certain effects on the whole society.
The current study sheds light on the reality of Iraqi youth of all categories and ethnicities. For the purpose of revealing the attitudes of the surveyed youth on the following:
Shedding light on the recreational and social interests of Iraqi youth in the current stage.
Determining the difference between the recreational and social interests of Iraqi youth according to the variables of age, gender, the standard of living, and areas of residence.
The current survey explained the interests of young people and their social and recreational opinions, through the data collected and their activities analyzed, based on the descriptive analytical approach to presenting the topic through a social survey of a sample of young people, with different orientations, different geographical areas, and different cultures in a way that allows generalizing the results to them.
The current study was directed to the youth category – males and females – through a questionnaire that consisted of fifteen main questions, directed to a sample of 1000 respondents. They were selected by cluster sampling method according to the districts of the selected governorates, and the areas of residence of the respondents: (Baghdad, Erbil, Nasiriyah, and Anbar). They were distributed intentionally in terms of the proportion of the population in each of the four governorates to the proportion of the selected sample, with a very slight variation in the methodology of some governorates.
The survey included the youth group aged 15 to 30, and it was chosen according to the estimates of the Youth Survey, both males and females. The questionnaire was distributed according to the population weight in each governorate, as it was distributed directly through 3 researchers working in Al-Bayan Center, one of whom is fluent in the Kurdish language. They practiced documenting responses orally with the respondents, as the answers were filled in via smart tablets. And over a period of 25 days, from February 1, 2022, to February 25, 2022.
The questionnaire was available in both Kurdish and Arabic, as the questions included the variables of gender, age distribution, educational level, profession, and governorate, as well as the “Likert” scale, which included 17 items related to recreational and social interests.
