The World Values Survey is a global research project that explores people’s values and beliefs, how they change over time and what social and political impact they have. It is carried out by a worldwide network of social scientists who, since 1981, have conducted representative national surveys in almost 100 countries. The WVS is the only source of empirical data on attitudes covering a majority of the world’s population (nearly 90%).
The WVS measures, monitors and analyzes: support for democracy, tolerance of foreigners and ethnic minorities, support for gender equality, the role of religion and changing levels of religiosity, the impact of globalization, attitudes toward the environment, work, family, politics, national identity, culture, diversity, insecurity, and subjective well-being.
The findings are valuable for policy makers seeking to build civil society and democratic institutions in developing countries. The work is also frequently used by governments around the world, scholars, students, journalists and international organizations and institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations (UNDP and UN-Habitat). Data from the World Values Survey have for example been used to better understand the motivations behind events such as the Arab Spring, the 2005 French civil unrest, the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the Yugoslav wars and political upheaval in the 1990s.
Romano Prodi, former Prime Minister of Italy and the tenth President of European Commission said about the WVS work: “The growing globalization of the world makes it increasingly important to understand diversity. People with varying beliefs and values can live together and work together productively, but for this to happen it is crucial to understand and appreciate their distinctive worldviews”.
Read more about World Values Survey: Key Insights, History, Methodology, Governance and Funding, Media, World Values Paper Series: World Values Research
Famous quotes containing the words world, values and/or survey:
“Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“To be faced with what so-and-so’s mother lets him do, or what the teacher said in class today or what all the kids are wearing is to be required to reexamine some part of our belief structure. Each time we rethink our values we reaffirm them or begin to change them. Seen in this way, parenthood affords us an exceptional opportunity for growth.”
—Ruth Davidson Bell (20th century)
“By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature—for instance in a biological survey of evolution—we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.”
—Owen Barfield (b. 1898)