Value Orientations in Society

The main objective of this department is the systematic research of values and attitudes, their continuity and changes, and their relationship to the way in which people behave. The department’s research aim is founded on the assumption that deeply rooted human values and attitudes are instrumental in directing, assessing, explaining and perhaps even predicting human behaviour. Values and attitudes lie behind the social, political, and economic changes in societies, and these in turn have a reciprocal impact on the changes in values and attitudes. The focus of interest in the research is Czech society, but preference is given to studies that allow for the possibility of international comparisons. One important task of the department is organising the annual European Social Survey in the Czech Republic. The department is thematically oriented towards research on continuity and change in general value orientations (political, religious, moral, family) and cultural and national value orientations (national identity, cultural identity and other value-based group identities).

Current projects:

• European Social Survey II. (ESS II.) 2004 - 2005 (Mgr. et Mgr. Klára Plecitá, Ph.D.)
• Real Quota Theory, an Alternative Approach to Measuring the Proportionality of Electoral Formulas in Proportional Systems (PhDr. Tomáš Lebeda, Ph.D.)
• The Social and Economic Characteristics of Non-Marital Fertility in the Czech Republic since 1989 (PhDr. Dana Hamplová, Ph.D.)