Loek Halman

Tilburg University | UVT · Department of Sociology

In this chapter, we investigate the claim of secularisation theory that the impact of religion on end-of-life moral issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and suicide in various regions in Europe has declined. We distinguish between five regions in Europe based on important historical and contemporary religious and secular characteristics: Northern,...

Do Europeans really feel European? Do they trust each other and are they solidary? What do they think of immigration and refugee influx? Do they want a greener and more sustainable Europe, and at what cost? Are democracy and human rights ingrained in Europe or are they under pressure? A new edition of the ‘Atlas of European Values’ answers these a...

Some participants of the public debate have argued that the world before and after the coronavirus crisis will look fundamentally different. An underlying assumption is that this crisis will alter public opinion in such a way that it leads to profound societal and political change. Scholarship suggests that while some policy preferences are quite v...

In this study, we explore trends in sexual-ethical permissiveness in the Netherlands during the last decades. Using Dutch data from the European Values Study (1981-2017), we show that tolerance towards homosexuality, abortion, divorce, euthanasia, and suicide increased in this period. About a third of this trend can be explained by cohort replaceme...

The increase in international survey research projects investigating basic orientations reveals that the grand sociological theories fall short in explaining the often large differences between populations in contemporary societies that continue to exist. There is more than modernization to explain varieties. Institutions, culture, history, policie...

The article describes the main stages of the development of a cross-national comparative and longitudinal survey research project on basic human values in Europe. It is noted that the relevance of focusing on values is that they function as prime guidelines in people’s life and they are also reflect many of the social changes that have taken place...

Grace Davie’s (1994) famous characterization of European religiosity in terms of believing without belonging triggered us to elaborate in a more sophisticated way on the interplay between religious beliefs and religious belonging. Using latent class cluster analysis, we explored to what extent there are clusters of people with distinct religious pr...

Since the time of Adam Smith, scholars have tried to understand the role moral sentiments play in modern life, an issue that became especially urgent during and after the 2008 global financial crisis. Previous explanations have ranged from the idea that modern society is built on moral values to the notion that modernization results in moral decay....

Since the time of Adam Smith, scholars have tried to understand the role moral sentiments play in modern life, an issue that became especially urgent during and after the 2008 global financial crisis. Previous explanations have ranged from the idea that modern society is built on moral values to the notion that modernization results in moral decay....

In this study, we investigate morality in relation to the public good in post-socialist Europe. Public good morality is defined as the (non)acceptance of behaviour that contravenes the law and harms society and the greater good of the collective, such as cheating on taxes if one has the chance, paying cash to avoid taxes, not paying one's fare in p...

Analysing survey data from the European Values Study we investigate if and how changes in church attendance bring about changes in people’s acceptance of abortion, homosexuality, divorce and euthanasia. We argue that decreasing church attendance not only should enhance overall acceptance of these moral issues, but it should also lead to greater div...

Analysing survey data from the European Values Study, we investigate whether and how changes in church attendance bring about changes in people’s acceptance of abortion, homosexuality, divorce, and euthanasia. We argue that decreasing church attendance not only should enhance overall acceptance of these moral issues, but it should also lead to grea...

Since 1981, the European Values Study group is searching for the values of the Europeans by means of surveys in an expanding number of countries. The latest wave took place in 2008 and included all 45 countries (with more than 100.000 inhabitants) on the European continent. We aim at a repeat survey in 2017. It was attempted to identify value sys...

In this chapter, the connection between religion and morality in Europe is explored. We focus on the differences between the religious and nonreligious (measured by religious practices as well as beliefs) in two moral dimensions across Europe and investigate whether or not these differences are determined by a country's degree of modernization, the...

The authors explore the impact of religion on two key parental values - obedience and autonomy - in contemporary Dutch society, one of the most secularized countries in the world. Three main religious dimensions are investigated: belonging (religious denomination), behaving (church attendance) and believing (traditional beliefs about God). In analy...

From the days of the founding fathers of their discipline, secularization has been considered by social scientists as an important aspect of the process of modernization of societies. Nowadays, however, religion seems to regain ground in many parts of the world. Sociologically churches can be seen as organized historical forms of religious inspirat...

Acknowledgements.- Note on the European Values Study as Main Data Source.- Preface.- Chapter 1. Introduction: European Diversity and Divergences; Joep de Hart, Paul Dekker and Loek Halman.- Chapter 2. Religion and Civil Society: Theoretical Reflections; David Herbert.- Chapter 3. Religion, State and Civil Society in Europe: Triangular Entanglements...

1. Marriage 2. Divorce 3. The family 4. Children or childless 5. Parenting-values 6. Labour market participation of women 7. Conclusion

1. Eastern Europe: the case of Czech Republic and Slovakia 2. Turkey 3. The EVE Curriculum Framework - Developments on the second phase (Clare Brooks) 4. Evaluations 5. Main changes to the curriculum Framework 6. Looking Forwards

This article discusses political values. The first section provides a working definition of the terms values and political values. This is followed by a discussion of old and new political values. The article also examines modernization and political value changes. The article ends with a section on critical and discontented citizens.

This book is an important tool for understanding how economic, social, political and cultural attitudes differ from one society to another, and how they evolve with economic and technological development. It provides detailed information on social values, religion, economy and politics analyzed by age, educational level, income and sex, and discuss...

This book presents the trends in beliefs and values of people in 85 countries around the world from 1981 to 2004. It shows the cultural differences and similarities between countries and how human values are changing.

Having its origins in the 1970s and being fielded on a large scale for the first time in 1981, the European Values Study is one of the longest existing ongoing survey data collection projects. Its core aim is to map the values, beliefs, and attitudes that people living in the various European countries hold in important spheres of their private and...

Large processes such as globalization, migration and the expansion and further integration of the European Union have led to an increased awareness of issues of collective identity in contemporary Europe. In the literature several competing claims can be found. Some observers discern a trend towards the emergence of a quasi-national European identi...

Social capital is an increasingly popular concept among scientists, politicians and the media. It is regarded as a remedy for many of the failures of modern society and seen as wonder glue conducive to feelings of happiness and to better performing economies and democracies. In this article we are not so much concerned with the consequences of soci...

A large body of literature has developed, yielding evidence that religion in general and Churches and Church leaders in particular have lost their once dominant position in contemporary Europe. Evidence is often cited in declining levels of church attendance. Whether Europe should also be qualified as secularized in terms of religious beliefs remai...

In this article, two work orientations are compared in European and African countries. These continents differ in many respects and thus differences in work orientations were to be expected. We argue that people’s work orientations will be dependent upon a number of individual and contextual characteristics and we formulated some hypotheses that we...

P> The issue of identity has recently gained cultural and political significance. The demise of communism in the Eastern Europe, the German reunion in Central Europe, and the Maastricht Treaty in Western Europe are said to have awakened nationalistic sentiments and movements, and processes of cultural, economic, and political internationalization a...

We explore the less prominent and often neglected issues of religious and moral pluralism in contemporary European society. Using the survey data from the most recent European Values Study (EVS), the patterns of religious and moral pluralism are investigated. Analyses of the previous EVS data demonstrated that Europe is not homogeneous. European co...

English This article tests whether state-organised solidarity substitutes social capital and informal solidarity, based on recent data from the European Values Study. At country level, we find that welfare spending has a reinforcing effect on social capital and a negative substitution effect on informal solidarity. At the individual level, there is...

Intercultural education is often assumed to lead to more tolerance towards other cultures. It may also entail an acculturation process that will lead to more cultural homogeneity. The European School system provides an interesting experiment in intercultural and multilingual education, which can help us answer these questions. A value survey among...