Values of young people in Slovenia

Abstract

In this article the values and life orientation of young people in Slovenia over a recent 10-year period are analysed. As is the case in the majority of other European countries, empirical research on large samples of various Slovenian youth populations in 1993, 1995, 1999 and 2000 has disclosed young people's marked preferential interest in the private and the personal spheres of life, whereas their interest in politics is slight, as is the degree of trust in existing political institutions and actors. In Slovenia this trend is usually characterized as a ‘shift towards privacy’, and being apolitical is one of the most frequently invoked defining features of the younger generation.In the author's opinion, these research findings reveal huge changes in Slovenia's political space–paradoxically, this space has contracted in comparison to the situation in the 1980s, largely due to a narrower understanding of politics and political activity.