2015/1

Working life is one of the important factors that affect overall quality of life and subjective well-being. Measuring its quality has been the focus of many recent projects and surveys implemented in the Czech Republic. The following text deals with the most general indicator of the quality of working life, namely overall working life satisfaction. It analyzes the relationship of this indicator with subjective well-being and its non-work aspects as well as with current job satisfaction. The results show that overall working life satisfaction is a broader category than current job satisfaction, it is much more closely related to subjective well-being than the latter, and it differs from the latter sufficiently to be considered a valid specific indicator.

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The author of this review article introduces the relatively new social science field of human-animal studies, focusing on its sociological dimension. Her aim is not a particularized compilation of existing publications on the topic, but a synthesis of the key ideas behind the sociological perspective on human-animal studies. The author includes references to crucial works and selected web portals where one can find more detailed information. She introduces the fundamental premises and theoretic assumptions of the field and contextualizes it in a wider interdisciplinary framework. She presents a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. She provides an elementary outline of the historical development of this field and its successive establishment within academic centres, universities and scientific journals. The author also introduces selected topics which this complex field examines today and, finally, outlines its possible future prospects.

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Techniques using visual stimuli have existed in social research since the late 19th century. However, the methodological framework in which they are embedded remains limited in scope, especially with respect to quantitative research. In this article, the author focuses on the methodological aspects of various types of visual techniques. Subsequently, he proposes some recommendations for methodological design. After a brief historical review, the main part of the article discusses psychological projective methods, photo-elicitation techniques and the application of visual stimuli in in-depth interviewing and quantitativquestionnaire surveys. Final discussion focuses on the methodological specifics of visual methods, design recommendations and the problem of validity.

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Political, financial and legislative support of one's own constituency or home location belongs to the main interests of politicians. The paper attempts to identify a spatial pattern in pork barrel grants allocated during the endorsement of draft state budgets by the Chamber of Deputies. The factor of deputies' home locations is analysed. Correlation analysis at district level exploits Parliamentary Gazette data on approved deputies' amendments to the draft state budget and a list of deputies' home municipalities from electoral database of the Czech Statistical Office. At municipal level, a local indicator of spatial autocorrelation was employed to discover several spatial clusters of high and low pork barrel support, which was compared with deputies' home locations. Although several pork barrel grants were allocated to these locations, no general correlation was confirmed.

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The electronic version of the first number of the thirteenth edition of the review Our Society (Naše společnost). Our Society issues Center for Public Opinion Research, Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.