Who are the postmaterialists? Sociodemographic characteristics of those who bear postmaterialistic values in the Czech Republic and Germany This master thesis is devoted to the Value Change Theory formulated by Ronald Inglehart. This American sociologist came in the 1970's with a conclusion, that there is a substantial difference between the values of the generation that experienced war and the values of the post-war generation, which is experiencing an unprecedential economic growth. As a consequence these younger generations have different priorities called by Inglehart as postmaterialistic values in contrast to materialistic ones. The aim of this paper is to find out what are the socio-demographic characteristics of postmaterialists, whether they differ in time and over countries by using secondary data from the European Values Study and from International Social Survey Programme. The results support the theory only partly. Czech and German postmaterialists are both rather younger and more educated. But there is a difference when examining the influence of gender and the size of community, where they live. In the Czech Republic the probability of being a postmaterialist is higher among men and together with eastern Germany it is higher in big cities. For western Germany relationships were in...

The thesis "Determinants of environmental concern" is a quantitative analysis that deals with determinants of environmental concern, the scale of new ecological paradigm, environmental behavior and ecological activism. It uses data from an international survey "International Social Survey Project Environment III" from year 2010. Strong predictors came out from the analysis, mainly cultural differences of the respondents and education. The inhabitants of Western Europe and English speaking countries have the strongest environmental concern, in contrast, in post communist countries of Eastern Europe is this concern the smallest. Post materialists and inhabitants of the richer countries have stronger environmental concern and they believe more in science and progress solving ecological problems. The perception of consequences of ecological problems on everyday life is also a strong determinant from which suffers mostly localities out of Europe. The recycling waste is most often carried away in Western Europe and English speaking countries. A strong correlation is between finished education and environmental concern as well as ecological activism, there is a weaker connection to saving natural resources.