The Effect of Parental Education and Parental Reading Behaviour on Family Cultural Capital of Lower and Upper Secondary School Students

Abstract

The aim of the research was to analyse the effects of family cultural capital on reading behaviour of the selected group of lower secondary and upper secondary school students in Slovakia. Based on the results of the international testing called PIRLS (2016) and PISA (2018) the school children in Slovakia achieved low results. Therefore, the selected aspects of family cultural capital were analysed to find out the extent of effect it has on the reading behaviour of the selected sample of the students in Slovakia. Specifically, the research was focused on the several selected factors, as follows: family trips, cinema, theatre shows, galleries and concerts attendance, family crafts, parental education, and parental reading behaviour. The sample was selected based on the age of the respondents and their school affiliation. Geographically the random sample was selected from the students of Nitra region in Slovakia. Although the data were collected about both parents of each student, the effect of mother’s reading behaviour appeared to have greater significance. Apparently, the number of books in the family library had some effect on reading behaviour of the children in the family, too. The results presented the importance of family environment in the process of reading behaviour development of the selected groups of students. Keywords: cultural capital, reading behaviour, mimic model, metric invariance.