Values in Transition and Development: New Findings from the World Values Survey

The World Values Survey (WVS) is an international research program dedicated to the study of social, political, cultural, religious and other values of people in different parts of the world. One of the project's main goals is to analyze values, norms and beliefs in comparative cross-national and over-time perspectives and to assess how values stability or change influences social, economic and political development of societies. The survey shows what people want out of their lives, what is important for them and what is less, in what they believe, their ideas about the right and wrong things. Over the years, the World Values Survey has proved the importance of population value study and has demonstrated that people’s beliefs play a key role in economic development, emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, rise of gender equality, and the extent to which societies have effective government. Present session unites papers which make use of the WVS data, including the most recent 7th wave of the WVS, conducted in 2017-2022 in cooperation with the European Values Study and covering over 80 countries and societies worldwide. Such topics as tolerance and social exclusion, social and ethical norms, gender equality perceptions, emancipative and postmaterialist values, security, migration, civic engagement, democracy, and the ways how WVS data can contribute to the enhancement of social theory and research in these and other fields are in the centre of the discussion of this panel. Papers addressing methodological, measurement and harmonization issues of the EVS/WVS survey data are equally welcome.