Parental Cultural Capital and Educational Attainment in the Netherlands: A Refinement of the Cultural Capital Perspective

TLDR

In modern Western societies, social origin largely determines educational trajectories, though evidence from Sweden and the Netherlands suggests a historical decline in the influence of parental education and occupation. The study investigates which aspects of parental cultural resources—specifically beaux arts participation versus reading behavior—affect children’s educational attainment. The authors examine the validity of Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory and DiMaggio’s cultural mobility theory by analyzing how parents’ educational background interacts with their cultural capital. The data show that parental reading behavior, but not beaux arts participation, predicts children’s educational attainment, supporting the cultural mobility hypothesis especially for children of parents with low education. Background.

Abstract

In this article, the authors report on their research on which aspects of parental cultural resources affect educational attainment and distinguish between parental beaux arts participation and parental reading behavior. Using representative data for the Netherlands in 1992 (N = 1,653), they found that parental reading behavior, not parental beaux arts participation, affects children's educational attainment. The authors also examine the validity of two alternative theories on the interaction of parents' educational background and their cultural capital (distinguishing between parental reading and beaux arts participation): Bourdieu's cultural reproduction theory and DiMaggio's cultural mobility theory. The data provide support for the cultural mobility hypothesis with respect to parental reading behavior; that is, parental reading is effective in predicting success in school, especially for children whose parents have low levels of education. here is no doubt that in modern Western societies, social origin still determines a person's educational career to a large extent. There is more disagreement, however, on whether the impact of parental social background on school success is declining. Most studies in this field have reported a stable, rather than a decreasing, association between parents' socioeconomic characteristics and offspring's educational success. In a comparative volume on historical developments in the effects of family background on educational attainment, Shavit and Blossfeld (1993) found that stability could be established in 11 out of 1 3 countries. Only for Sweden and the Netherlands, the country we focus on in this article, a historical analysis revealed a steady decline in the impact of father's educational attainment and occupational position on children's educational success for both men and women (R M. De Graaf and Ganzeboom 1993; Erikson and jonsson 1996). BACKGROUND