INTEGRATING BUDDHIST PRINCIPLES TO PROMOTE AWARENESS OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AMONG PHITSANULOK ROVINCIAL TRANSPORT OFFICE PERSONNEL

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to; 1) Study the level of political participation awareness 2) Compare political participation awareness categorized by personal factors 3) Present the integration of Buddhist principles in promoting political participation awareness among personnel at the Phitsanulok Provincial Transport Office. Conducted by the mixed research method. The quantitative research used questionnaire as a tool to collect data from 74 and a qualitative research used an in-depth interviews to data from 9 key informants and the data were analyzed by content descriptive interpretation. The research results were found that: 1) The overall level of opinion regarding the promotion of political participation awareness among personnel was high. 2) The results of the comparison among personal opinions with different gender, age, education, occupation and monthly income had no different opinions at statistically significant level of 0.05 no accepted the set hypothesis 3) The integration of Buddhist principles in promoting political participation awareness among personnel showed positive results in several areas: receiving political information through multiple channels; engaging in political discussions both within and outside the organization; exercising freedom of expression through opportunities for constructive expression; and demonstrating civic responsibility. Emphasis is placed on elections and political participation, including educating others about politics.