Protesting is a common tactic used by social movements and the outcomes are widely researched in social movement studies. This thesis examines the biographical consequences of protest participation on individuals’ life-course patterns from a gendered and intergenerational perspective. The study employs regression analysis and a longitudinal dataset collected from the Swedish Level of Living Survey, which includes six panel waves in total stretching from 1968 to 2010. It consists of a nationally representative sample of the Swedish population between the ages of 15–75, in which the last two panel waves include the respondents’ children in the ages of 10–18. The results show that protest participants are likely to become more educated than non- participants and that they continue to remain active in political and union activities. Further, there is evidence of gender-based differences between protesters as women do not continue to uphold the same level of involvement in political organisations in comparison to men. No support is given to the expectation that protesting will have intergenerational effects. The results show that participating in protests may have long-lasting consequences for individuals and that there seems to be gender-based differences between protesters, which might have implications for individuals’ further involvement in political activities.

5 ABSTRACT This diploma thesis deals with the topic of reading. In the process of examining the development of an individual for reading, it is necessary to take into account the effects of primary socialization taking place in the family environment. The aim of the diploma thesis is to find out how is readership affected by the family environment and how is passed between generations (intergenerational transmission). It is also a goal to find out whether and how readership vary across selected European countries (including Czech Republic) in relation to these factors. The effect of the family environment on adult reading is studied through parent education and aspects of the so-called pro-reader climate. The pro-reader climate in the family helps communicate a person's relationship to books and reading in his early childhood and affects his future life. A family environment that supports reading habits is reflected in childhood through parent-child interaction (reading, communicating about the content being read), the availability of books at home, and the reading of parents that provide a background for reading. The existence of a relationship between reading and family environment in the intergenerational and internationally comparative perspective is examined through secondary analysis of two...