Practicing citizenship: creation and validation of a measurement scale

Abstract

This work aims to develop a scale to measure the citizenship practices of individuals in the Brazilian context. Citizenship is a popular concept, but it is difficult to measure and operationalize due to its complex and multidimensional nature. It is one of the effects desired by society, social organizations, and more participatory management. Thus, the development of a scale of citizenship practices enables a deeper understanding of this construct, supporting public and private studies and actions aimed at collective well-being. Supported by Marshall’s (2017) classical theory of citizenship and its extensions, the scale was based on a picture of variables traced from the literature and confirmed by experts on the subject. Statistical validation was performed using both factor analysis and bases of structural equation modeling with two samples of 207 and 522 research subjects. As the main result, a statistically validated scale was created with seventeen items classified into four dimensions of citizenship practices: civil, political, social, and environmental.