A Cross-National Analysis of the Relationship between Family Strengths and Educational Achievement.

While there is a growing body of literature on the links between family strengths and child outcomes, most research has focused on individual countries, or a small set of countries. It is unclear, for example, which set of family strengths matter the most within individual countries, and whether these patterns are similar or vary across countries. Specifically, this paper will focus on the relationship between two dimensions of family strengths--communication between parents and children and children’s involvement in cultural activities-- in 17 industrialized countries. This study utilizes data from the newly released Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). While social communication does not appear to have a strong or consistent effect on reading literacy, those who engage in high levels of cultural communication with their parents and cultural activities have significantly higher levels of reading literacy in all but one of the 17 countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]