Projects / Programmes
PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH OF SOCIAL VALUES ON SPACE AND ENVIRONMENT: LONGITUDINAL STUDY BETWEEN 2003 AND 2018
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.03.00 |
Social sciences |
Sociology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S210 |
Social sciences |
Sociology |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 5.04 |
Social Sciences |
Sociology |
social values, attitudes, public opinion, environment, space
Researchers (4)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
12652 |
PhD Marjan Hočevar |
Sociology |
Head |
2018 - 2019 |
309 |
| 2. |
09735 |
PhD Drago Kos |
Sociology |
Retired researcher |
2018 - 2019 |
562 |
| 3. |
50488 |
PhD Primož Medved |
Sociology |
Researcher |
2018 - 2019 |
45 |
| 4. |
16405 |
PhD Simona Zavratnik |
Sociology |
Researcher |
2018 - 2019 |
234 |
Organisations (1)
Abstract
Research into public (people’s) values about the natural and built environment is one of the key contextual instruments for understanding social changes and guiding society’s development. The problems in the environment indeed always reflect the social conditions, while spatial problems per se exist only exceptionally. People’s value patterns about dwelling and their (individual) “opinionated ideas” about land use and environment management should be a guidance principle in the elaboration of spatial strategies and the long-term planning of interventions into space at the local, regional, national, and European levels. During the transition to a post-modern (and globalized) society, society’s complexity constantly increases, intensifying diverse questions about the legitimacy of the interventions into space. Due to the necessary formal procedures, people often perceive spatial planning as out of touch with everyday life and restrictive. Spatial regulations, aimed at creating order and ensuring development as envisaged, can hardly satisfy people’s very diverse interests, in particular their increasingly individualized needs for space and in space. It is therefore necessary to find a kind of modus vivendi between integrative and differential principles in spatial planning. The research project is to continue, update, and complement in contents and methods the longitudinal public opinion monitoring of values, opinions, and ideas about the natural and built environment of a representative sample of the adult population of Slovenia in the 2003-2018 period. The first survey was carried out by the project applicant – the Centre for Spatial Sociology (CSS) of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana – as part of the Targeted Research Project “Slovenia's competitiveness 2001-2006”. The field research was carried out from March to May 2004. The key question was how to reconcile common social, i.e. public, developmental objectives with people’s individual, personal values. To this purpose, land use and long-term spatial development should correspond as much as possible to the needs of the people, local communities, and the national spatial strategy, as this would facilitate an integrative disposition towards the emerging European spatial order and Europe’s environmental principles of nature-friendly development. The present research, the second public opinion survey of values, focuses on a more detailed identification of the (dis)agreements between the national spatial strategies and the growing reflexivity of individuals concerning environmental opinions and approaches to land use. We will therefore develop a more accurate measurement instrument for analyzing the anticipated changes in the population's preferences for dispersed or contiguous settlement. We further aim to explicitly examine how compatible people’s values about dwelling are with Slovenia’s (and the EU’s) long-term strategic development towards a more contiguous settlement system. The shifts in the value patterns of Slovenia’s population will be examined in relation to the trends of accelerated social differentiation in space, and the newly emerging life styles of dwelling, work, mobility, and leisure. Life styles are directly related to the phenomenon of the spatial contextualization of entrepreneurship and a sharing economy, along with newly emerging patterns of environmental awareness and spatial management. We anticipate changes in people’s value patterns towards a more rational, economical, and flexible use (exploitation) of both their personal as well as public spatial resources, based on the findings of the first research, where we definitely registered powerful traditional, static, and non-mobile principles of territorial affiliation. Simultaneously, we will try to establish how the mobility values of the Slovene population correspond to the European (and global) trends, established in their research projects by researchers elsewhere. Furthermore, w
Significance for science
Epistemological relevance:
Incorporation of the research into people’s social values in an explanatory apparatus of spatial and environmental studies within the sociological discipline, and interpenetration of the research’s findings into other humanist, sociological and natural science disciplines, which study the relationship between social and physical spatiality (e.g. geography, transportation studies, network theory). The research approach that will be used in analyzing people’s value patterns reveals that a sociological, or even a narrow spatial sociological, perspective does not provide a satisfactory explanatory framework when issues concerning nature (physical space, environment) and society (structuredness, cultural patterns) are involved. The conceptual basis of the research includes different epistemological principles, and as such addresses partiality as a problem of sub-disciplinary specializations.
Methodological relevance:
The dynamic and concentrated concept of the representative sample of the Slovene population takes account of specific geographical, morphological, and demographic features, and simultaneously facilitates comparisons with other national samples. The over- and under-representative nature of the sample by territorial areas is conceptually substantiated (e.g. the specific discrepancy related to the high share of the non-peasant rural population, translated into a methodological instrument). A methodological innovation will be evaluating the comparability of the variables of different public opinion questionnaires in the ADP database (ADP: Archive of Sociological Data), including variables aimed at analyzing social values of a more general nature.
Scientific application relevance
The project enables the use of its research results in trans-sectoral analyses of social development, and in the inter-sectoral coordination of public policies at the different administrative levels (e.g. the location of activities in space, assessment of the standards of public services in space, allocation of the network of charging stations for electric vehicles).
Interactive summary review of the public opinion survey, with a direct link to the databases from the first and second public opinion surveys, and a keyword-based search engine for a user-friendly experience by institutional and private users (e.g. urban planners, officials, journalists).
Significance for the country
Consultative role to business operators in validating investment regarding the location and acceptability of the inclusion of activities in space as viewed by the local population (affirmative or negative opinion);
Insight into the mobility dynamics of the Slovene population (e.g. willingness for dwelling and commuting mobility), providing business operators with predictable “flexibilization” of production and/or services in space.
Insight into the environmental awareness of the population (e.g. opposition to “dirty” industries in local environments) in their reflections on business investment.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2018,
final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2018,
final report
