Mens & Maatschappij - Volume 98, Issue 1, 2023

Socialization process or position of power? A study into the relative importance of father’s and mother’s cultural capital for children’s educational attainment

In this article we study the relative influence of mother’s and father’s cultural capital on the educational attainment of their children in two-parent families. Based on the cultural capital theory it can be expected that cultural capital of both parents positively affects the educational attainment of their children. With respect to the relative importance of father’s and mother’s capital we derive opposing hypotheses. According to socialization theory mother’s cultural capital is most important, but from theory on relative power and gender roles it can be derived that father’s cultural capital is most important. Furthermore, we expect that having two parents with a lot of cultural capital is especially favourable for their children’s educational outcomes. The hypotheses were tested using data from the Longitudinal Internet studies for the Social Sciences panel. We find a small positive effect of mother’s cultural capital. Father’s cultural capital only plays a role if the mother has very little cultural capital. The capitals of the parents thus compensate instead of reinforce each other.

“Well, did you enjoy molesting your home town?”: a quantitative analysis of the relational awareness in mayors’ public responses to the COVID-19 anti-curfew riots in the Netherlands

When several local mayors fiercely denunciated the violent riots that erupted after a curfew was imposed as a COVID-19 mitigant in the Netherlands, journalistic and academics critics soon warned that such responses often unjustly and counter-effectively depoliticize and delegitimize public protest. The commentators joined a choir of scholars who postulate that public authorities readily distance themselves from troublemakers, let alone acknowledge their grievances. However, our content analysis of mayors’ public responses to the Dutch 2021 anti-curfew riots in 719 newspaper articles finds that office holders portray considerable relational awareness. We find that mayors communicate a complex leadership style that crucially combines strict law enforcement with interpersonal empathy.

What is your mother doing? The influence of mother’s occupational status on her children’s educational outcomes and how it is related to father’s influence

In this article, we investigated the influence of mother’s occupational status on her child’s educational outcomes and to what extent this depends on father’s occupational status. Based on the Breen and Goldthorpe (1997) model, we expected that mother’s occupational status positively affects the educational outcomes of her child, although this influence may be weaker than father’s influence due to remains of traditional gender roles in the Netherlands. Second, we expected that daughters benefit more from mother’s occupational status than sons. Finally, we derived from the dominance model (Erikson, 1984) that the positive influence of mother’s occupational status becomes weaker when father’s occupational status is higher. The three hypotheses were tested with datasets from the LISS panel in 2012 on 1.176 Dutch participants who grew up in dual earner households. The results of multilevel regression analyses show that mother’s occupational status indeed has a moderately positive effect on her child’s education level. This effect does not differ between sons and daughters and is independent of fathers’ occupational status. Unexpectedly, father’s occupational status does not affect his child’s educational level when mother’s occupational status is taken into account. This suggests that in dual earner households mother’s occupational status is more relevant than father’s occupational status.