<p>Already in 1988, different levels of participation in the election between different districts of big cities in Sweden were noticed. The problem with low political participation in specific areas has almost always been theoretically explained through an individual perspective. This study is therefore focusing on the problem from a contextual perspective. The hypothesis for the study is as follows, in the case of Malmö the level of participation in elections are affected by social environment in which segregation will be the single highest factor. The dependent variable, participation in the election was tested by the independent variables representing social environment; origin, education, gainfully employed and income. The results showed that there is a contextual effect on participation and that segregation is the single highest factor to the exceptional low level of participation in the district of Rosengård. The hypothesis was verified. However the study, due to lack of data, could not clarify how high the contextual effects were compared to the individual effects on the level of participation in the election.</p>

Already in 1988, different levels of participation in the election between different districts of big cities in Sweden were noticed. The problem with low political participation in specific areas has almost always been theoretically explained through an individual perspective. This study is therefore focusing on the problem from a contextual perspective. The hypothesis for the study is as follows, in the case of Malmö the level of participation in elections are affected by social environment in which segregation will be the single highest factor. The dependent variable, participation in the election was tested by the independent variables representing social environment; origin, education, gainfully employed and income. The results showed that there is a contextual effect on participation and that segregation is the single highest factor to the exceptional low level of participation in the district of Rosengård. The hypothesis was verified. However the study, due to lack of data, could not clarify how high the contextual effects were compared to the individual effects on the level of participation in the election.