The European Values Study in Croatia - 1999

The European Values Study (EVS) was carried out in Croatia for the first time in 1999. The research was lead by Professor Josip Baloban, head of pastoral theology on the faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Zagreb, in cooperation with some of his colleagues from the same faculty, as well as with colleagues and professors from other scientific social institutions. The project was approved and financed by the Croatian Ministry of Science and Technology. After Croatia\u27s historical turning-point in 1990 and its becoming independent, as well as the end of the war on Croatia (1991-1995), together with the democratic process in society and partly in the Church, the need arises for some religious empirical research in the young state. Prior to this, there had been no socio-religious research free of ideological prejudice. The Catholic Theological Faculty carried out the »Religion and Morality in Croatia« study in 1997/98. The first results have already been published in the scientific magazine Bogoslovska smotra (1998, no. 4), and individual works in later issues of the same Review. In the year 2000 in the Zagreb diocese and in the Đakovo-srijem diocese, an international study was carried out among priests entitled »Priests 2000«. The EVS is the first international study to be carried out by the Catholic Theological Faculty, and was planned to be a three year project which storied in 1999 and will finish in 2002. It is a representative study carried out throughout Croatia on 1003 respondents according to the common European questionnaire obtained from the University of Tilburg. The questionnaire contains 114 questions or scales and a total of 359 variables. The study was done between the 5th and the 29th of April 1999. The results obtained reveal that the majority of respondents declared themselves to be Roman Catholics (84.5%), while 13,2% claimed that the question was irrelevant to the respondent, and the remainder belong to different confessions. In this issue of Bogoslovska Smotra (2000, no. 2) the first results of the study have been published. Presented works relate to the following areas: religion and morality, society and politics, marriage and family life, work and leisure time, sexuality and education. The results are preliminary and partial. Since Croatia was not included in the two previous European Value Studies (1981 and 1990), it was not possible to compare the data from this study to that of the previous European studies. Only results from the Croatian study, »Religion and Morality in Croatia« have been used for partial comparison in the articles. The Croatian research team leading the EVS-99 in Croatia has two desires, or two plans for the next two to three years. One is to do a national study in which results from other European countries of interest to Croatia would be presented. The other is to prepare an English version of the most important articles in connection with EVS-99, to provide the European and world public with some insight into the Croatian values study and its interpretation. Besides this, the researchers hope to present the Church and society with real understanding of basic values in Croatia and their consequences. Finally, the European and in part world situation with respect to modern basic values will be made clearer to them