This volume compiles a series of jointly produced articles by the two authors which are partly new and partly already published. Three general themes can be specified which lie at the heart of this book. The first major theme focuses on an ongoing phase transition in the overall science landscapes from a traditional configuration under the name of Science I to an emergent ensemble under the heading of Science II. The second large topic discusses the impact of the transition from Science I to Science II for empirical social research, especially for survey research. The impact of Science II for survey research is being discussed especially with the help of data from the European Social Survey (ESS). The third focus of the book introduces the notion of RISC-societies (Rare Incidents, Strong Consequences) as a general evolutionary framework for societal analyses and the wider implications for empirical social research
COBISS.SI-ID: 31766365
When measuring (complex) attitudes within a social survey, researchers often use balanced lists of positive and negative items. The purpose of the present research is to investigate: (a) whether a specific order of measurement scale items can lead to the bipolar (single-dimensional) concept (attitude) being recognised as a dual (bi-dimensional) concept and vice-versa; and (b) whether item order can affect the consistency (metric characteristics) of a measurement scale. An experiment on a group of social science students was conducted: students were randomly split into three subgroups and three different version of a questionnaire (with three differing item orders) were applied. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (‘CFA’) and a single group CFA for each item order separately were applied. The final conclusion of the experiment is that there is no general rule about how and when respondents form separate (dual) or unidimensional (continuous) representations of measured concepts. Item-order effects are possible, but they are not as important as one would expect. The results of the experiment also suggest that other factors should be taken into account: the content of the measured concept and the cognitive sophistication of the respondents.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30583645
Background: Historically speaking, public health systems were established to guarantee every citizen equal access to health care and to separate the issue of an individual's health from issues of material welbeing. Using social science methodology, the study set out to explore how successful the welfare system in Slovenia was in achieving this goal during the last three decades, i.e. to what extent social inequalities in Slovenia are being reproduced as health inequalities. Methods: The study is based on six waves of Slovenian Public Opinion surveys carried out between 1981 and 2011 on representative samples of the adult Slovenian population. The main dependent variable is the respondent's selfassessed health and the main independent variable is his or her socio-economic status. The relationship between them was examined using Chi-square tests and regression analysis. Results: The thirty year trend shows persisting inequalities in health as throughout the entire period, self-assessed health is significantly lower at the bottom of the educational and income scale. The largest differences between social strata are observed in the 30 to 60 age group when labour market pressures are most pronounced. Conclusions: The results indicate that inequalities in health are almost impossible to eliminate as long as their deeper causes lie in social inequality. An additional factor that decreases self-assessed health in Slovenia compared to Western Europe is the low level of trust in people and social institutions, which is the likely reason why the relatively favourable statistical picture of social inequalities is not translated into an equally favourable picture of subjective health.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30994525
This paper examines a forty-year dynamic of concern for the environment among Slovenian respondents. It first makes an inventory of the variables that are presumed to influence perceptions of environmental risk, then proceeds to analyse twelve Slovenia Public Opinion datasets to observe the trends. The longitudinal evidence reveals considerable shifts in the perception of environmental concern, particularly in response to dramatic outside events (such as Chernobyl). The trends reveal a cyclic pattern, with 2011 levels of concern having returned to the levels observed in the early 1970s, following a peak in the early 1990s. No distinctive patterns for the different types of environmental risk can be observed, which suggests that respondents fail to make a distinction between the different types. Finally, the data reveals that previous differences of opinion that correlated with levels of education and age have gradually been disappearing. The observed trends in environmental concern are best explained by macro factors, in particular the challenge-response model, the agenda-setting model, and the issue-entrepreneurship model.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31363421
In the paper we focus on some aspects of the distribution of happiness in Slovenia between 2000 and 2009, which can be characterised as a period of the gradual consolidation of major political and economic transformations. We hypothesise that, due to the gradual rise in economic prosperity and political stability in Slovenia, there was an increase in the level of happiness. Nevertheless, we also expect that due to the new social cleavages generated by the countryʼs post-socialist transformation this period was characterised by a growing gap between the least and the most happy. We further expect that the social composition of the least and most happy parts of the Slovenian population changed considerably over the course of time. Yet none of these hypotheses are confirmed by our data. There were some oscillations in both the average level of happiness and the gap between the least and the most happy but no clear trends of change. There was also no change in the social composition of the most and the least happy. The data indicate that in Slovenia in the period under study the dynamic of happiness was largely unaffected by the outcomes of the countryʼs post-socialist transformation.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31363165