SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF HUMAN-RIGHTS AMONGST CZECH UNIVERSITY-STUDENTS

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a general legislative fra mework for democratic societies. Studying the social representations o f these basic human rights helps to explain how people understand and assess the basic rights and how these rights relate to everyday life. Over 400 Czech university students rated the 30 articles of the Declar ation of Human Rights on various scales (degree of understanding, pers onal relevance, consequences for individual responsibility, for govern ment, political parties, etc.). A semantic space was identified in whi ch concepts (i.e. the Articles of the Declaration) could be located. A typology (clusters) of articles was then established within that sema ntic space. A factor analysis of the scales resulted in a two-dimensio nal solution ('positive attitude' and 'personal influence'). Five clus ters of assessed articles were identified within this semantic space. ((C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)