Many forms of the social pathology phenomena (hereinafter SPP), also referred by modern terminology as risk behaviour, have been subject to numerous research and epidemiology studies. And many reveal a tendency of children and young people of our so called ‘information society’ to develop addictions to psychoactive substances or other non-drug related dependencies. The SPP selected here include: gambling (Forrest, McHale, 2012); internet addiction disorder (IAD) (Sinkkonen, Puhakka, Meriläinen, 2014) - problematic internet use; and the sect phenomenon (Furseth, Repstad, 2006) - addiction to destructive religious ideology. The research shows (Nešpor, 2012) that Czech children and young people are some of the most vulnerable in Europe in terms of alcohol addiction, drug misuse and other health risk behaviours.

The phenomena of IAD, gambling and religious sects had not existed to such an extent (if at all) in Europe in the previous few decades as they do today. After the Velvet revolution (1989) which had instigated some fundamental political, economic and social changes in the Czech Republic, we have registered the development of undesirable social phenomena in the last 25 years, similarly to other Eastern European countries - e.g. Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania (Pivarč, 2014). These phenomena that are omnipresent in today's Czech democratic society remain to be overlooked in terms of understanding, even though they significantly influence the socio-cultural and other contextual determinants at the micro, mezzo and macro levels of social environment. Undeniably, the phenomena of IAD, gambling and religious sects threaten our society (macro-level), particularly a healthy development of young people throughout the education process (micro level). The phenomena bring adverse health risks to the physical, emotional and social well-being and impact on the quality of life in general. The population of children and young people should have at least some basic understanding of the SPP including the health risks they pose in order to take an adequate approach. It is a task for schools, relevant regional institutions (mezzo level) and national authorities (macro level) to provide essential information and to minimise the influence of the modern SPP in children and young people by introducing preventative options. In the Czech context, there is a wide range of research studies and preventative school programmes that deal with substance misuse. However, the issue of children's conceptions (preconceptions and misconceptions) of the modern SPP, i.e. non-drug related addictions and their health risks, has been given only a marginal attention. Practically, we know nothing about the pupils' notions of IAD, gambling and religious sects, or their understanding of the most common related health risks.

Pupils' preconceptions of the phenomena are an important element in the current education. Even for other scientific disciplines, the understanding of pupils' preconceptions of SPP is fundamental (particularly for social work, addictology), because the preventative educational programmes are based on it and aimed at health education. In this way, there is a value of collaboration and coherence of all the parties involved at the micro (pupils, teachers), mezzo (a school, parents, local government) and macro level (state administration authorities).

The key objective of this cross-sectional quantitative research study was to analyse the preconceptions of primary school pupils of the selected SPP (IAD, gambling and religious sects) and their understanding of the potentially related health risks. Pupils' preconceptions were analysed as multidimensional entities that included a cognitive dimension (a level of understanding of SPP) and an affective dimension (attitudes towards SPP) of preconceptions. The following hypothesis was tested as part of the research: Preconceptions of primary school pupils from the 5th and 9th grades related to the selected SPP do not differ in terms of understanding and attitudes.

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