This thesis is focused on the phenomenon of the social exclusion to the specifications of socially excluded children. My target was to answer these questions: How children threatened by social exclusion spend their free time? Are they satisfied with these ways and do they feel any limitations to spend a free time in different way? The theoretical part I focused on the theoretical definitions of the concept of social exclusion and other theoretical related concepts like integration, social inclusion or culture of poverty. Further I was dealing with definition of free time and in addition I described briefly a town called Neratovice where children participated in my research live, visit the school or do some leisure activities. For the research, I selected a quantitative research method - four semi-standardized interviews with children threatened by social exclusion at the age of 6-11 years. In addition children drew a time schedule of their common week day and weekend day. In practical part I analyzed the data from research, compare it with the data from other researches and suggest some recommendation based on these data in theoretical context published in theoretical part. Key words: social exclusion, integration, social inclusion, culture of poverty, Gypsy, free time, leisure activities, children

The thesis deals with the role of the state and society in their attitudes to poverty and social exclusion. The introductory part aims at characterising the phenomenon of poverty and social exclusion, and deals with the issue of how the society perceives poverty. It focuses on the concept of the culture of poverty, and attention is given to the need of solidarity, social justice and the social state. The following part of my thesis deals with the extent of poverty and social exclusion in the Czech Republic, as well as possibilities of a social safety net in the Czech Republic. It describes particular examples of the manifestation of social exclusion and poverty in the Czech society, especially in the sphere of housing, opportunities in the labour market and falling into destructive debts. It sheds light on the situation of Romanies as the worst affected population group. The current situation in the Czech Republic shows that the attitude of the society to poverty as a personal fault and failure, impedes mutual solidarity, and generates strategies connected with repression that fail to understand the causes of poverty. For this reason, they cannot be adequately efficient. The society should react to, consider and efficiently solve poverty-related problems. Inspiration may be found in Christian ethics and its concept of human dignity.