Previous research has shown that parental involvement at home seems to be socio-economically stratified. To study this stratification, recent research has drawn a distinction between early and late parental literacy activities at home. Early parental literacy activities at home happen before primary school, whereas late parental literacy…

In this paper, we have employed data from the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA, 2012 edition) on the EU-15 countries in order to investigate the effect of using ICT at home on achievement. By employing Propensity Score Matching, we provide robust evidence that in most countries there is a negative association between…

Children start preschool with large individual differences in their early numerical abilities. Little is known about the importance of heterogeneous patterns that exist within these individual differences. A person-centered analytic approach might be helpful to unravel these patterns and the cognitive and environmental factors that are associated…

We present three statistical methods for causal analysis in life course research that are able to take into account the order of events and their possible causal relationship: a cross-lagged model, a latent growth model (LGM), and a synthesis of the two, an autoregressive latent trajectories model (ALT). We apply them to a highly relevant…

This study aimed to investigate the relationship of classroom composition factors with reading and listening comprehension achievement and progress in socially and ethnically segregated primary schools in Flanders (Belgium). Specifically, using a three-level multivariate repeated measures analysis, it examined the association of reading and…

Education systems are crucial social and cultural apparatuses. They are designed to homogenize at least to a large extent the discourses and praxis of the citizens of a nation by channelling them as much as possible through a unified educational system. However, in ethnically and culturally diversified societies, these homogenizing social…

In this article we probe the interplay between public and private music consumption using a large-scale survey of the Flemish population in Belgium. We analyze whether public and private music consumption have different correlates and to what extent there is convergence between the genres that people listen to at home and at concerts. Results show…

In this article we characterise the well-being of young children in the Belgian region of Flanders. We focus on three commonly used indicators: educational attainment, the existence of special needs and the occurrence of problematic behaviour. The former derives from a relatively impartial source, the schooling system, while the latter two…