The Research Unit on “Values, belonging and democracy” (VADem) is a group of scholars and researchers collaborating since 1984 on the basis of a common professional interest in the following areas:

  • the value-orientations of Italians and Europeans investigated by surveys organized and conducted in Italy since 1990, within the European Values Study (EVS);
  • the value-orientations of Italians and Europeans with specific reference to civil values and civic attitudes, within the World Values Survey (WVS);
  • the attitudes of the sense of socio-territorial belonging with specific reference to spatial mobility and to ‘localism’, ‘nationalism’, and ‘cosmopolitanism’, investigated by surveys organized and conducted in Trentino and in other Italian regions since 1980;
  • the analysis of democracy and its transformations, with particular reference to the dimension of political culture (values, orientations, attitudes, political identity, symbols and public rituals);
  • the relations between politics and religion within the democratic and secular State e the post-secular society;
  • the history of Italian sociology with particular reference to the late 19th century – early 20th century period.