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Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 28 (2010) 453–464

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

arental media socialization and educational attainment: Resource ordisadvantage?

Natascha Notten ∗, Gerbert Kraaykamp 1

Department of Sociology, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Received 14 May 2009; received in revised form 30 June 2010; accepted 1 July 2010

bstract

This article analyzes the long-term effects of parental media socialization on children’s educational attainment. Data on 8316ndividuals from 3257 families in the Netherlands is used to estimate hierarchical models that distinguish between family-specificsocialization) and individual-level effects. The study reveals that parental reading and television socialization plays a meaningfulole in predicting children’s success in education. Whereas parental time spent viewing television is disadvantageous for a child’sducational career, parental reading intensity enhances educational success. Moreover, not only does media exposure play a relevantole, the content of parental media consumption also matters. Parents who prefer highbrow literature benefit their children’s educa-ional career, whereas a preference for watching popular TV programs is disadvantageous for a child’s educational success. Next to

he parental example of media consumption, media guidance provided by parents is scrutinized. Results indicate that parent-childnteractions on reading positively affect children’s educational attainment.

2010 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility. Published by Elseviertd. All rights reserved.

ily bac

eywords: Parental media socialization; Educational attainment; Fam

. Introduction

In this study we investigate the extent to whicharental television and reading socialization activitiesffect their children’s educational attainment. Mostesearch on television consumption indicates that televi-ion exposure harms children’s academic performance

nd overall well-being (Hancox, Barry, Milne, &oulton, 2005; Valkenburg, Cantor, & Peeters, 2001).ome studies however report positive effects of cer-

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 24 3612037; fax: +31 24 3612399.E-mail addresses: n.notten@maw.ru.nl (N. Notten),

.Kraaykamp@maw.ru.nl (G. Kraaykamp).URLs: http://www.nnotten.nl (N. Notten),

ttp://oase.uci.ru.nl/ gerbertk/ (G. Kraaykamp).1 Tel.: +31 24 3612014; fax: +31 24 3612399.

276-5624/$ – see front matter © 2010 International Sociological Association Research Committee

doi:10.1016/j.rssm.2010.07.001

kground; Cultural resources; Multilevel analysis

tain TV behavior on children’s cognitive and linguisticskills (Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2006; Wright et al., 2001).Parents are generally presumed to play a decisiverole in teaching children how to deal with television’sattractions (Sharif & Sargent, 2006). Parents providean example by way of their own television viewingbehavior, and they also guide their children’s televi-sion viewing, for instance, by giving instructions orby coviewing. Comparable research on reading social-ization shows that in-home promotion of children’sliteracy skills is an overall positive factor in a child’seducational career (Bus, Van IJzendoorn, & Pelligrini,1995; De Graaf, De Graaf, & Kraaykamp, 2000). Par-

ents may influence and shape their children’s readingbehavior by setting an example, via their own readingpractices and by actively stimulating a child’s readinghabits.

28 on Social Stratification and Mobility. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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454 N. Notten, G. Kraaykamp / Research in Soc

Social stratification research often focuses on howparental resources and socialization activities affect chil-dren’s educational success. One dominant and persistentpredictor of educational achievement is referred to asparental cultural capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977;DiMaggio, 1982). When it comes to parental culturalassets and the intergenerational transmission of thesefamily-specific resources, an often-tested and corrobo-rated presumption is Bourdieu’s cultural reproductionhypothesis. From this idea it follows that in highbrowfamilies certain parental cultural dispositions benefitchildren’s educational success, whereas a lack of thesehighbrow cultural resources in lower class families hin-ders children’s educational progress (De Graaf, 1986;Kalmijn & Kraaykamp, 1996).

Although all parents’ cultural behaviors and pref-erences are presumed to play an important role in thecultural reproduction process, research so far has largelyfocused on parental highbrow cultural behaviors, likevisiting art exhibitions, the theater and classical concerts.With some relevant exceptions (Crook, 1997; De Graaf,1986; De Graaf, De Graaf, & Kraaykamp, 2000; Lareau,2003; Sullivan, 2001), studies on the effects of culturalcapital often disregard possible effects of media-relatedcultural practices within the parental home, especiallyregarding television viewing. Nonetheless, media behav-ior at home is a recurrent and salient cultural activity.Therefore, when it comes to a child’s educational career,parental media activities are likely to have a larger effectthan the less frequent parental highbrow cultural outings.By studying parental media socialization activities, weexpect to shed a somewhat different light on the pro-cess of cultural reproduction in education. Our generalresearch question reads as follows: To what extent doparental media socialization activities affect children’seducational attainment?

Our research may be regarded as innovative forseveral reasons. First, we hypothesize that parentalhighbrow media socialization (e.g. reading literature)enhances a child’s educational attainment, whereasparental lowbrow media activities (e.g. excessive tele-vision viewing) may harm a child’s educational career.We thus distinguish within the overall notion of culturalcapital between “beneficial” and “disadvantageous”resources and activities. Second, we study socializationactivities through the example set by parents at home(parents’ own media behavior) and by means of parent-child interactions on media consumption (parental media

guidance). Third, previous research on the effects ofmedia socialization activities, especially in communi-cation studies, deals mainly with children still livingwithin the parental home. Here we focus on long-term

tification and Mobility 28 (2010) 453–464

effects of parental media socialization. We study indi-viduals born between 1955 and 1978 who no longerlive with their parents. Hence, socialization may beassumed to be completed for these persons. Fourth, weapply multilevel modeling to Dutch sibling data, whichenables us to distinguish between family-level socializa-tion effects and individual-level effects. Using data fromthree waves of the Family Survey Dutch Population, weanalyze 8316 individuals from 3257 families (De Graaf,De Graaf, Kraaykamp, & Ultee, 1998; De Graaf, DeGraaf, Kraaykamp, & Ultee, 2000; De Graaf, De Graaf,Kraaykamp, & Ultee, 2003).

2. Theoretical background

2.1. Cultural resources and parental mediasocialization

A large body of research bears out the importanceof parental resources for children’s educational success(Aschaffenburg & Maas, 1997; Bourdieu & Passeron,1977; Dumais, 2005; Farkas, 1996; Lamont & Lareau,1988). Parents impart skills and competencies to theirchildren, but this parental socialization differs both inquality and quantity between social groups. From Bour-dieu’s cultural reproduction hypothesis it follows that inthe higher social groups advantageous cultural resourcesare transmitted from generation to generation (Bourdieu& Passeron, 1977). This reproduction process helps chil-dren from higher social strata to stay ahead, especiallywithin the meritocratic schooling systems of Westernsocieties.

Although the concept of cultural capital is widespreadin stratification sociology, scholars in the field are equiv-ocal about the exact definition of cultural capital (Lamont& Lareau, 1988; Sullivan, 2001, 2002; Van de Werfhorst,2010). Most studies take cultural capital as being almostidentical to parental highbrow cultural participation.This rather limited focus on elitist parental cultural out-going behavior, and the accompanying advantages forchildren, disregards the possibility that parental popu-lar or lowbrow cultural socialization activities may bedetrimental to a child’s educational success (Coleman,1971). In this study we therefore argue that parents notonly reproduce advantageous cultural assets over gen-erations, they may also transmit unfavorable culturalpractices to their children. Accordingly, parental mediasocialization can be a resource or a disadvantage for a

child’s educational career.

To gain insight into this reasoning it is helpful todistinguish between cultural capital as a social statussymbol and cultural capital as a source of cogni-

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N. Notten, G. Kraaykamp / Research in Soc

ive competency (De Graaf, De Graaf, & Kraaykamp,000; Farkas, 1996; Lareau, 1987). First, from a statuspproach, it follows that parental cultural capital referso a class-specific disposition that codifies boundariesi.e. social inclusion and exclusion). From this perspec-ive, cultural capital may both enhance and lower aerson’s social status, depending on the status of thepecific cultural activity that one participates in. Tak-ng part in lowbrow activities, that is, activities with aow or unfavorable status, may then harm a person’s sta-us position, compared to not participating at all. Hence,cquiring such negative parental cultural capital mayinder or even prevent a child from enrolling in higherevels of education. Because of the gap between homend school culture, children then may be unfamiliar withhe informal and formal (highbrow) codes in school andonsequently behave in ways that conflict with schoolulture and curriculum.

Second, from the cognitive perspective it followshat some parental cultural habits benefit the intellec-ual development of their children, thereby giving theirhildren a head start in school. Parental participationn lowbrow cultural activities probably does not hinderhildren’s cognitive development, but it does not helphem either. These parents’ low level of in-home cogni-ive stimulation might leave their children less preparedor higher levels of education and thereby limit their chil-ren’s educational career. Both the status approach andhe cognitive approach suggest the need to split the con-ept of cultural capital into beneficial and detrimentalarental cultural resources and habits.

In this study we focus on parental television viewingnd reading behavior as cultural activities or resourcesolding both positive and negative status values and thatight be relevant in the context of children’s schooling.he media currently hold an important place in almostvery family home and subsequently are the subject ofvariety of parent-child interactions. Media behavior isaily, it is observable, and it is time-consuming. Thus,hen it comes to affecting a child’s educational career,arental media socialization activities are likely to bemportant. Parental media socialization manifests inwo manners (Kraaykamp, 2001; Notten & Kraaykamp,009a; Kloosterman, Notten, Tolsma & Kraaykamp, inress). First, parents raise and socialize their children byetting an example, thereby functioning as role models.arents live a certain lifestyle, and children may interpret

heir parents’ behaviors and preferences as the right way

o go (Bandura & Walters, 1963). In doing so, childrenend to copy their parent’s media behavior. The social-zation that takes place when children imitate parental

edia behavior is predominantly unintentional. Second,

tification and Mobility 28 (2010) 453–464 455

parents may act as conscious educators. Parental mediasocialization is then effected via parent-child interactionsregarding media consumption, such as parental guid-ance on television viewing or reading suggestions. Toobtain insight into the actual process of cultural social-ization, our study includes both aspects of parental mediaexample and media guidance.

2.2. Socialization by parental media example

Television viewing is generally not considered to bea socially rewarding or high-status activity. Rather, TVviewing is largely associated with entertainment, pas-sivity, low cognitive stimulation, reduced concentrationand non-creativity. It consequently has a negative image.Also, actual television viewing is thought to take up timethat could otherwise be spent on school-related activitiesand thus provides little cognitive competency (Hancoxet al., 2005; Sharif & Sargent, 2006; Verboord & VanRees, 2003). Spending large amounts of time watch-ing television would therefore poorly match with schoolculture and curricula, especially at higher levels of edu-cation. Hence, compared to children whose parents donot watch much TV in their free time, children fromfamilies where great amounts of time are spent view-ing television are probably less familiar with schoolnorms and less prepared to meet the requirements ofhigher education (Vandewater et al., 2005; Zimmerman& Christakis, 2005). This cultural clash between homeand school culture may ultimately hamper or even harma child’s school career (Elchardus & Siongers, 2003;Notten & Kraaykamp, 2009b; Sullivan, 2001). There-fore, we hypothesize that excessive parental televisionviewing harms a child’s educational attainment.

Unlike TV viewing, reading books is a well-established and socially rewarded leisure activity.Reading books is believed to increase language devel-opment, literacy skills, interest in books, and to broadena person’s worldview (Leseman & De Jong, 1998;Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Parents who spend a sub-stantial amount of their leisure time reading books areviewed as setting a beneficial example and stimulatingtheir children to read (Kraaykamp, 2003). Since readingis valuable for development of cognitive competency andits status matches school culture relatively well, whichappears to be a universal phenomenon (Evans, Kelley,Dikora, & Treiman, 2010; Notten & Kraaykamp, 2009b),

parents who are avid readers would foster a success-ful educational career for their children. We thus expectthat frequent parental book reading enhances a child’seducational attainment.

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Next to variation in the amount of reading and TVviewing, it might be important to acknowledge thatbooks and television programs differ in content. Parentsset an example not only in the time they spend on specificmedia sources, but also in the content of their media con-sumption. Some parents prefer highbrow media content,whereas others favor lowbrow content (Lareau, 2003;Notten & Kraaykamp, 2009a; Verboord & Van Rees,2003). By highbrow media behavior we refer to theconsumption of, and familiarity with, more elite andcomplex media content, such as literary reading andwatching informative or cultural television programs.Highbrow media consumption is likely to stimulate a per-son’s cognitive development, promote problem-solvingskills and foster cultural competency. Moreover, it isa high-status activity that is well matched with schoolculture. Our hypothesis thus reads parental highbrowbook reading and highbrow television viewing enhancea child’s educational attainment.

By contrast, parental lowbrow media behavior isunlikely to (or does not sufficiently) enrich childrenwith beneficial school-related skills and competencies.For example, consuming purely entertaining media inthe parental home, such as watching soaps or readingromantic novels, is unlikely to foster a child’s cogni-tive and language competency (Elchardus & Siongers,2003). Such lowbrow activities hold a low status valueand do not socialize children adequately with the com-plex verbal and academic skills necessary for enrolmentin higher levels of education (Cook-Gumperz, 1973;Durham, Farkas, Hammer, Tomblin, & Catts, 2007;Lareau, 2003). Hence, parental lowbrow book readingand lowbrow television viewing harms a child’s educa-tional attainment.

2.3. Socialization by parental media guidance

So far, sociologists studying cultural socializationhave largely focused on parental cultural behaviorsand hardly recognized the importance of parent-childinteractions. Pedagogical and communication research,however, shows that active guidance, such as givinginstructions and setting rules for watching television,is a key part of parents’ television socialization activ-ities (Austin, 1993; Austin, 2001; Barkin et al., 2006).Also, scholars studying literary socialization have foundthat frequent parent-child interaction is highly relevantfor the fostering of literacy skills and cultural behav-

iors (Durham et al., 2007; Garrett & Baquedano-López,2002; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Therefore, we arguethat next to the example set by parents in media consump-tion, parent-child interaction regarding media is relevant

tification and Mobility 28 (2010) 453–464

for a child’s educational success. Accordingly, we expectparental media guidance to mediate the effect of the par-ents’ own media habits on their children’s educationalattainment.

First we focus on parental interactions regardingtelevision viewing. When it comes to the effects of tele-vision consumption results seem equivocal. Scholarstesting displacement theory show that especially low-brow (entertainment) television consumption absorbstime that otherwise might be spent on educational activ-ities, like doing homework and reading (Hancox et al.,2005; Koolstra, Van der Voort, & Van der Kamp, 1997).Other studies, find that watching educational televisionprograms enhances children’s school readiness (Wrightet al., 2001). In our study we must acknowledge thatsome parents supervise their children’s television con-sumption, for instance by restricting or allowing TVviewing, to teach children how to use media in an advan-tageous way or to protect them from possible harmfuleffects, whereas others do not (Barkin et al., 2006;Valkenburg, Krcmar, Peeters, & Marseille, 1999). As aresult, intensive parental guidance on television view-ing might lead children to develop healthy TV habits onthe one hand and school-related skills on the other. Wetherefore hypothesize that parental television guidanceenhances a child’s educational attainment.

Second, research repeatedly shows reading booksto be an activity that stimulates children’s cognitivedevelopment and cultural competency (Bus et al., 1995;Leseman & De Jong, 1998). Sulzby and Teale (1991)found parental support to be the most effective means toenhance children’s reading achievement. Other scholarshave shown that interaction between parents and chil-dren in literacy activities is highly relevant in preparingchildren for school (Kraaykamp, 2003; Kloosterman etal., in press; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986; Verboord & VanRees, 2003;). It is therefore likely that some parentswill actively stimulate their children to read books, forinstance, with bedtime reading or by discussing the con-tent of a book, since these are the qualities needed toperform well in the higher levels of education. So, wehypothesize that parental reading guidance enhancesa child’s educational attainment. Note that we expectparental media guidance to mediate the effect of par-ents’ media example on their offspring’s educationalattainment.

3. Data and measurements

To test our hypotheses we employ three waves of theFamily Survey Dutch Population (FSDP), conducted in1998, 2000 and 2003 (De Graaf et al., 1998; De Graaf,

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Next, a confirmative factor analysis established ahighbrow and lowbrow dimension for the TV programsparents preferred according to the respondents’ reports.3

2 We lack the housing information on a few siblings, so our datasetmay contain a marginal proportion of siblings still living with their

N. Notten, G. Kraaykamp / Research in Soc

e Graaf, & Kraaykamp, 2000; De Graaf, De Graaf,raaykamp, & Ultee, 2000; De Graaf et al., 2003). TheSDP combines face-to-face and written interviews, and

s held among a nationally representative sample of theutch population between ages 18 and 70. In the FSDP arimary respondent and his/her partner are interviewed.he number of primary respondents and partners in the

hree surveys was 2029 in 1998, 1561 in 2000 and 2714n 2003. Both respondents and partners are questionedbout a broad range of topics regarding their life coursend life situation. The FSDP gathers detailed informationn various socialization activities in the family home dur-ng childhood and therefore suits our research questionery well.

A major advantage of the FSDP is that it containsnformation on the siblings of all respondents and allartners, such as birth dates, educational attainment andccupational status. In the 2000 and 2003 FSDPs, infor-ation on all of the respondents’ siblings is available. In

he 1998 FSDP three siblings were randomly selected,nd only information on these siblings was gathered. Theierarchical structure of the FSDP, that is, the nestedtructure of siblings in families, enables us to performultilevel analysis, by which we obtain insight on the

elevance of individual and family factors for a sibling’sducational attainment. In the remainder of this studye use the term ‘respondents’ to refer collectively torimary respondents, partners and siblings.

A special quality of the FSDP data is that socializationnd family-specific aspects are recorded retrospectivelyhrough the primary respondents. This first necessitateshe assumption that parental media socialization is equalor all siblings in a family. Also, respondents’ recallay be skewed by memory effects and social desir-

bility bias. However, previous research on the FSDPata shows that no systematic error exists in retrospec-ive measures of parental cultural capital (De Graaf, Deraaf, & Kraaykamp, 2000; De Vries & De Graaf, 2006).dditional analyses using interviews with the parentsf a subset of our respondents (FNB 2000, N = 319),nabled us to compare respondents’ reports on parentaleading behavior with reports by the parents themselves.egression of parental reports on respondents’ reportsnd respondents’ own reading behavior yields no sig-ificant effect of respondents’ current reading behavior,ndicating no recall-bias directed at current respondents’ehavior. We therefore conclude that our retrospectiveeasurements of parental media behavior are not (con-

iderably) biased by recall accuracy.We selected respondents (primary, partners and sib-

ings) older than age 24 to obtain a sample of peopleho had completed daytime education (95.0% of all

tification and Mobility 28 (2010) 453–464 457

respondents). To ensure that a person’s socialization wascompleted, we removed individuals still living with (atleast one of) their parents (2.2% of respondents).2 Inthe Netherlands, television was introduced around 1955and generally accepted in the early 1960s. As a result,respondents born before 1955 and respondents withouta television set in their home during childhood could notanswer questions about their television-related socializa-tion. We excluded these respondents (53.9%). Accord-ingly we analyze people from birth cohorts between 1955and 1978 who experienced both reading and televisionsocialization activities in their parental home.

The dependent variable educational level is mea-sured as the final educational attainment of respondentsin 10 categories. To obtain an appropriate intervalscale, we applied a standard recoding procedure for theminimum number of years required to reach the edu-cational level concerned: primary education (6), lowervocational training (LBO) (9), lower general education(MAVO) (10), intermediate general education (HAVO)(11), secondary vocational training (MBO) (12), pre-university education (VWO) (13), higher vocationaltraining (HBO) (15), university (WO) (17) and postgrad-uate (PhD) (21).

We are interested in two types of media socializa-tion activities: reading books and viewing television.All socialization measures refer to the time when therespondent was between ages 5 and 15. Parental TV timemeasures the example set by the parents with respect totime spent viewing television. Respondents were askedto indicate how much their parents watched television.A dichotomous variable was constructed: (0) parentswatched less than 2 hours a day, (1) parents watched morethan 2 hours a day. Parental reading time is measured bytaking the sum of respondents’ reports on the intensityof both fathers’ and mothers’ reading of six book genres.We labeled parents as more than average (i.e. frequent)readers when at least two book genres were reportedas read often by either parent. A dichotomous variablewas constructed: (0) parents read less than average, (1)parents read more than average.

parents.3 Sports loaded a little higher on the popular dimension. Because of

the popularity of sport programs (50% of respondents watched often)and the limited cultural content of these programs, this item is assignedto the lowbrow dimension.

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We constructed parental highbrow TV viewing by takingthe mean of the following two items after standardiza-tion: (a) parents watch informative programs and (b)parents watch cultural-artistic programs. Answer cat-egories were (0) never, (1) sometimes and (2) often.Parental lowbrow TV viewing is measured by four itemsreflecting the lowbrow television programs that parentswatched: (a) films or series, (b) live or game shows, (c)sports and (d) soaps. Answer categories again were (0)never, (1) sometimes and (2) often. Although films andseries might also contain highbrow elements, factor anal-yses clearly confirmed this genre as lowbrow. A scalewas created by taking the mean of the four items. Bothaspects of favored parental TV content were standardizedby ranking the scores from 0 to 1.

A confirmative factor analysis also established theexistence of a lowbrow and a highbrow dimension inparental reading.4 We constructed parental highbrowreading using respondents’ reports on fathers’ and moth-ers’ reading (a) Dutch or translated literature, (b) novelsin a foreign language and (c) popular-scientific books.Respondents’ reports on parental lowbrow reading referto fathers’ and mothers’ reading (a) detective, sciencefiction or war novels and (b) romantic novels. Answercategories were (0) never, (1) sometimes and (2) often.Scales were constructed taking average scores. Again,the variables were standardized by a ranking between 0and 1.

Parental TV guidance is probed in the FSDP 2003only, and is represented by several indicators represent-ing parental television guidance (Valkenburg et al., 1999)at the time when the respondent was between 5 and12 years of age. Here we use two items characterizingrestrictive parental television guidance: (a) parents lim-ited children’s hours of TV consumption, and (b) parentshad a specific TV timetable for the children. Answerswere given on a 4-point scale ranging from (0) entirelyuntrue to (3) entirely true. To construct a scale, the itemswere standardized and average scores were calculated(α = .68).

Parental reading guidance is measured by five state-

ments: (a) as a toddler I was read to by one of my parents,(b) for my birthday-Christmas-St. Nicholas I receivedbooks as a gift, (c) my parents recommended books, (d)

4 Mothers reading Dutch literature and fathers reading detective,war and sf novels loaded on both dimensions. On theoretical groundsand because popular reading after removing detective novels then ismeasured only by reading romantic novels (which is done mostlyby women) we decided to assign mother’s Dutch literature readingand father’s detective reading, respectively, to highbrow and lowbrowreading.

tification and Mobility 28 (2010) 453–464

at home we discussed the books I read, (e) my parentswere interested in what I was reading. Answer categorieswere (0) never, (1) sometimes and (2) often. Again, ascale was created taking average scores and standard-ized between 0 and 1 employing a ranking procedure(α = .82).

Parental social background here refers to parentaleducational level and occupational status. Parental edu-cational level is measured using respondents’ reports ofboth parents’ educational attainment and ranges from6 (primary school) to 21 years (PhD). We took themaximum of father’s and mother’s highest completededucational level. Parental occupational status is mea-sured by taking the maximum of father’s and mother’sISEI score of their occupation when the child was aged15 (Ganzeboom, De Graaf, & Treiman, 1992). Thisranges between 10 and 90. Both variables measuringparental social background are centered to the mean.

Several controls for family composition were takeninto account. Mother’s age at childbirth refers to theage of the mother in the year the respondent was born.To account for influential cases we rounded exception-ally young mothers up to the age of 16, topping downexceptionally old mothers to the age of 45. We centeredthe variable to the mean (29 years). Parental divorceindicates whether a respondent experienced a divorceof his/her parents in early childhood (between ages 0and 15). Categories are (0) no parental divorce and(1) parental divorce experienced.5 Working mother ismeasured by two questions on the working status ofa respondent’s mother, namely, (a) was your motheremployed for at least 1 year during preschool and (b)was your mother employed for at least 1 year during pri-mary school. Our variable indicates whether the motherwas either (0) non-working or (1) working during therespondent’s early years. Family size refers to the num-ber of siblings in the family, including the respondent.We topped it down to a maximum of eight siblings (in5.1% of the cases). Sex and birth cohort are included ascontrols. Sex indicates whether the respondent is a (0)male or (1) female. Birth cohort is a continuous variableranging from 1955 to 1978 and is centered around 1964.

We dealt with missing values by using a multi-

ple imputation procedure (Allison, 2000; Rubin, 1987;Rubin, 1996). This procedure replaces missing valuesby random imputation, here based on the observed val-

5 This means that our dataset consists of a small number of half-siblings or step-siblings. We reduced this proportion by removingsiblings born after the parents of the primary respondent or partnerwere divorced (0.5%).

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Table 1Description of all variables.

Minimum Maximum Mean S.D.

Educational level respondent 6.00 21.00 11.90 2.94Sex (0/1) 0.00 1.00 0.50Birthcohort (1964 = 0) −9.00 14.00 −0.08 5.77Mother’s age at childbirth (29 = 0) −13.00 16.00 0.32 5.89Parents divorced (0/1) 0.00 1.00 0.05Working mother (0/1) 0.00 1.00 0.27Family size (1–8) 1.00 8.00 4.06 1.83Parental educational level (10 = 0) −4.00 11.00 0.24 3.25Parental occupational status (46 = 0) −36.00 44.00 −0.02 16.14Parental TV time (0/1) 0.00 1.00 0.56Parental reading time (0/1) 0.00 1.00 0.33Parental highbrow TV viewing (0–1) 0.01 1.00 0.50 0.27Parental lowbrow TV viewing (0–1) 0.00 1.00 0.50 0.29Parental highbrow reading (0–1) 0.00 1.00 0.50 0.28Parental lowbrow reading (0–1) 0.00 1.00 0.50 0.28Parental TV guidance (0–1)a 0.02 1.00 0.50 0.29Parental reading guidance (0–1)a 0.02 1.00 0.50 0.29

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significantly between families. We calculated the intr-aclass correlation (ICC = .45); 45% of the variance ineducational attainment of siblings is due to differentia-

ource: FSDP 1998, 2000, 2003 (N level 1 = 8316; N level 2 = 3257).a FSDP 2003 only (N level 1 = 3498; N level 2 = 1332).

es of all other variables included in our models, andields multiple ‘complete’ data-sets. Considering theercentage of missing values in our dataset (6.9%),ve multiple imputed datasets were constructed. Anal-ses were performed on each dataset separately, afterhich the results were pooled. After performing theultiple imputation procedure we removed respon-

ents with initially missing values on the dependentariable: respondents’ educational level (0.7%) (Vonippel, 2007). Table 1 presents a description of theariables.

. Analyses

.1. Modeling strategy

To estimate individual and family (parental social-zation) effects, we apply multilevel analysis (Snijders

Bosker, 1999). We constructed a hierarchical datasetith two levels: the lowest level (level 1) is that of

ndividuals and the highest level (level 2) concerns theamilies of origin. Our multilevel models simultane-usly analyze individual- and family-level effects. Bystimating these multilevel models, we model hetero-

eneity and obtain more correct estimates of the familyffects than models that neglect the data structure of chil-ren nested in families. Moreover, we can establish howuch of the (total) variance in educational attainment is

xplained by family-specific qualities, and the extent to

which individual characteristics are relevant.6 Our hier-archical dataset contains 8316 individuals nested in 3257families. Because the analysis of the effects of parentalguidance only makes use of the 2003 FSDP data, in thiscase the dataset contains 3498 individuals nested in 1332families.

We start our analyses with estimation of the nullmodel (Model 0) with a random intercept and with-out predictors. Model 1 includes control factors. Model2 adds parental television and reading time. Model 3explores the content of parental media consumption.Model 4 and 5 include measures of parental televisionand reading guidance.

4.2. Results

Table 2 shows the results of the estimated multilevelmodels examining the relation between parental mediasocialization and educational attainment. The null modelreveals a significant variance at the family level, whichindicates that children’s educational attainment varies

tion between families.

6 We applied cross-classified analyses to correct for the clusteringof respondents and partners within a household. The results did notdiffer.

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Table 2Multilevel regression models estimating the effect of parental media socialization on educational attainment, unstandardized coefficients.

Model 0 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4a Model 5a

b S.E. b S.E. b S.E. b S.E. b S.E. b S.E.

Individual level (level 1)Sex (0/1) −0.19*** 0.05 −0.18** 0.05 −0.19*** 0.05 −0.23** 0.08 −0.22** 0.08Birthcohort (1964 = 0) 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01

Family compositionMother’s age at childbirth (29 = 0) 0.02*** 0.01 0.02** 0.01 0.02*** 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01Parents divorced (0/1) −0.85*** 0.15 −0.81*** 0.15 −0.82*** 0.15 −0.66** 0.23 −0.74** 0.23

Family level (level 2)Working mother (0/1) −0.04 0.08 −0.01 0.08 −0.05 0.08 0.03 0.12 0.01 0.12Family size (1–8) −0.18*** 0.02 −0.19*** 0.02 −0.19*** 0.02 −0.23*** 0.03 −0.23*** 0.04

Parental social backgroundParental educational level (10 = 0) 0.28*** 0.01 0.25*** 0.01 0.24*** 0.02 0.23*** 0.02 0.23*** 0.02Parental occupational status (46 = 0) 0.03*** 0.00 0.02*** 0.00 0.02*** 0.00 0.02*** 0.00 0.02*** 0.00

Parental media exampleParental TV time (0/1) −0.71*** 0.07 −0.62*** 0.11Parental reading time (0/1) 0.36*** 0.08 0.17 0.13Parental highbrow TV viewing (0–1) 0.21 0.14 0.18 0.22Parental lowbrow TV viewing(0–1) −0.52*** 0.13 −0.55** 0.20Parental highbrow reading (0–1) 0.78*** 0.16 0.37 0.26Parental lowbrow reading (0–1) 0.22 0.14 0.16 0.21Parental media guidanceParental TV guidance (0–1) 0.07 0.19 0.07 0.19Parental reading guidance (0–1) 1.03*** 0.22 1.02*** 0.24

Intercept 11.99*** 0.04 12.72*** 0.10 13.02*** 0.11 12.40*** 0.16 12.59*** 0.23 12.24*** 0.27

VarianceIndividual (level 1) 4.70*** 0.09 4.72*** 0.09 4.72*** 0.09 4.72*** 0.09 4.79*** 0.14 4.80*** 0.14Family (level 2) 3.88*** 0.15 2.08*** 0.11 1.93*** 0.10 2.00*** 0.10 1.70*** 0.15 1.77*** 0.15ICC 0.45Deviance (–2LL) 39982.541 38856.149 38740.923 38795.818 16178.452 16277.742

***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05. Source: FSDP 1998, 2000, 2003 (N level 1 = 8316; N level 2 = 3257).a FSDP 2003 only (N level 1 = 3498; N level 2 = 1332).

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or disadvantage in a child’s educational career. Onlyfew cultural reproduction studies address the role ofparental reading and television socialization in deter-

N. Notten, G. Kraaykamp / Research in Soc

Model 1 includes individual- and family-level con-rols as well as family background aspects. The resultsndicate that daughters are somewhat less successful inheir educational career than sons, and no significantffect of birth cohort was found. Having an older motherositively affects educational attainment (b = .02), and aarental divorce during childhood has a negative effectn educational success (b = −.85). Of the family-levelontrols, whether the mother works seems to have noignificant impact, whereas living in a large familyoes negatively affect educational attainment (b = −.18).odel 1 also comprises parental social background, and

hows that both parental educational level and occu-ational status positively affect children’s educationalchievement. Parental educational level proves an espe-ially important factor (b = .28), which is in line witharlier research.

The time parents spent viewing television and read-ng books during the respondent’s childhood is includedn Model 2. In line with our expectations, the resultsndicate that parental TV time negatively affects the edu-ational career of children (b = −.71). Respondents withxcessive television viewing parents during childhoodnd their educational career about 9 months (.71*12onths) earlier than respondents from parents who

re moderate television viewers. These results showhat growing up in a television-oriented household, fornstance, could result in obtaining a diploma for sec-ndary vocational education instead of a higher levelre-university diploma. By contrast, frequent exposureo parental reading in one’s youth seems to foster edu-ational achievement (b = .36). Note however that theositive effect of parental reading is about half the mag-itude of the negative effect of parental TV viewing. Theffects of parental social background appear to be inter-ediated by parental media behavior. Parents’ time spentatching television and reading books mediates about1% of the effect of parental educational level and around0% of the effect of parental occupational status. Thisay be seen as an indication that cultural reproduction

artly works through parental media behavior.Model 3 examines parental preferences for lowbrow

nd highbrow media content and the effects of such pref-rences on educational attainment. Unfortunately, timearents spent consuming different media and their pre-erred media content cannot be included in the sameodel due to high correlations. The results in Modelshow that parental highbrow viewing does not signifi-

antly affect children’s educational career. The results doeem to support our expectation that parents’ lowbrowelevision viewing limits their children’s educationaluccess (b = −.52). By frequently watching low-status

tification and Mobility 28 (2010) 453–464 461

and non-informative television programs, parents seemto reduce the chances of their children entering the higherlevels of education. In contrast, recurrent parental high-brow reading seems to foster educational achievement(b = .78). Children exposed to frequent parental literaryreading spent about 9 months longer within the educa-tional system than children from non-reading parents.Although parents set a beneficial example by readingthemselves, it is reading literature that actually enhancestheir children’s educational career, since parental low-brow reading turns out to be irrelevant.

Model 4 and 5 add parental media guidance. Asstated above, in studying parental media guidance weare restricted to the 2003 FSDP data. This limitationresults in fewer respondents in these two models.7 Theresults of Model 4 and 5 give reason to conclude thatparental stimulation of children’s reading is profitablewhen it comes to educational attainment (b = 1.03 andb = 1.02, respectively). Children who’s reading behavioris encouraged by their parents, spend about 12 monthslonger within school than children who’s parents do notor hardly show any interest in their children’s readingbehavior. Additionally, parent-child interaction on read-ing seems to mediate the influence of parental readingbehavior. The positive effect of parental reading, bothreading time and highbrow reading content, is almosthalved and no longer significant. We thus seem to findevidence that when it comes to reading socialization, itis actually not the parental example but the parent-childinteraction that is most effective.

Note that the effect of parental television guidancein Model 4 and 5 is positive but appears to be non-significant. This indicates that, when we control for allother socialization activities in our analysis, parentalrules on television time are not noticeably associatedwith educational success on the long term.8 The negativeimpact of both parental TV time (b = −.62) and lowbrowtelevision viewing (b = −.55) remains highly influential.

5. Discussion

This article scrutinized whether specific parentalmedia socialization activities function as a resource

7 A comparison of the results of Model 2 and 3 on the dataset of2003 only, showed virtually identical effects.

8 In line with our hypothesis a positive and significant bivariate rela-tion exists between parental time-restrictive television guidance andeducational success (r = .08).

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mining school success. Media socialization however isbeneficial in fostering cultural competency, as it is likelyto build problem-solving skills, stimulate cognitivedevelopment and familiarize children with school cultureand school curricula content (Lareau, 2003; Leseman &De Jong, 1998). Contrarily, parental media socializationactivities may be harmful too (Cook-Grumperz, 1973;Sullivan, 2001). When media socialization is charac-terized by lowbrow consumption and limited cognitivestimulation it might lower the chances of achieving ahigher education. Dealing with the effects of mediasocialization we here studied parental reading and televi-sion socialization, distinguishing highbrow and lowbrowactivities in both domains. Furthermore, we differenti-ated between the effects of the example set by parents intheir media behavior and the effects of parental guidancewith respect to media consumption. We applied multi-level analyses to Dutch sibling data (FSDP 1998, 2000,2003) to analyze these issues, focusing on the long termeffects of parental media socialization on children’s finaleducational attainment.

Our results suggest two main conclusions. First,excessive television exposure in the family home isdetrimental to a child’s educational success. A parentalexample of excessive television viewing seems to con-flict with school culture and norms, and apparentlyprepares children less well for a successful career in thehigher levels of education. Not only is exposure to televi-sion in one’s youth negatively related to final educationalattainment, the parental example regarding preferredtelevision programs (content) proves relevant as well.When parents frequently watch lowbrow or entertain-ment television programs this significantly lowers theeducational achievement of their children on the longterm. Second, we find substantial effects of parent-childreading interaction on educational attainment. Althoughthe parental example of reading and preferring seriousliterature enhances children’s success in school, literacy-stimulating activities appear to be especially important inpromoting children’s school performance. By means ofactivities like reading to children and discussing books,parents foster cultural competencies in their childrenwhich seem to pay off in the long run in terms of successat school.

Certainly our study has some drawbacks. First, wemade use of retrospective data, which is frequentlyargued to be affected by memory effects and socialdesirability. Additional analyses on respondents’ reports

of parental cultural capital using the FSDP-data how-ever revealed no systematic bias (De Graaf, De Graaf,& Kraaykamp, 2000; De Vries & De Graaf, 2006).Own calculations, using both respondents’ and parents’

tification and Mobility 28 (2010) 453–464

reports of prior parental reading support these claims.Nonetheless, applying a panel design could shed moreinsight into possible causality issues. Second, researchin various domains has shown differential effects ofsocialization for boys and girls. While acknowledg-ing that parental media socialization effects might begendered, we consider this issue beyond the scope ofthe present study. We suppose the relevance of thecurrent research is largely found in its extending thecultural capital thesis to the media domain and to possi-bly disadvantageous cultural socialization activities. Wedo propose future research to gain greater insight intopossible (long-term) gendered effects of media social-ization.

Recommendations for future research can also bemade regarding parent-child interaction on televisionviewing. With televisions’ attractions being a greatsource for parental concern, especially when it comesto children’s development and well-being, we expectedparental television guidance to be highly influential inenhancing their offspring’s educational career. Althoughwe found no significant direct effects of parents set-ting television rules, future studies may want to discusspossible long term indirect effects of parental televisionguidance on educational attainment.

The present study foremost underpins the relevanceof media literacy for a child’s educational career.Because families differ significantly in their mediabehaviors, other institutions might want to compensatefor inequalities in this respect. Next to programsaiming at media education at home, policymakers andresearchers addressing educational disparities mightalso consider paying greater attention to the long-termeffects of media education as a part of school curricula.This becomes even more urgent in view of our findingthat cultural socialization is not always beneficial. An“inappropriate” parental example regarding televisionviewing has serious negative effects on a child’s edu-cational performance. Hence, we think these culturalresources should be labeled as “harmful”, as its effectis one of conferring disadvantageous cultural capitalinstead of merely failing to possess advantageouscultural resources. Thus, depending on the media sourceand media content, parental media socialization mayfunction as a beneficial resource or as a disadvantage ina person’s educational career.

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Natascha Notten studied Sociology at Radboud University Nijmegen(MA with distinction, 2005), where she currently works as a PhDcandidate at the Department of Sociology. Her research interestsinclude social stratification in various domains (e.g. educational,cultural and health inequality), and, more specific, explanationsand consequences of differentiation in media consumption, culturalparticipation and parental socialization activities. She has publishedher research in Dutch and international journals.

ment of Sociology, Radboud University Nijmegen. His main fields ofinterest and current works are in the areas of social stratification andcultural consumption. He has published on these subjects in Dutch aswell as international journals.