Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 2024, 60(4): 355-380 | DOI: 10.13060/csr.2023.034

The Intergenerational Transmission of Cultural Capital: The Social Determinants of the Size of a Home Library

Petra Raudenská ORCID...
Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v. v. i., Praha

This study focused on the social determinants of the objectified state of cultural capital in adulthood. It examined whether intergenerational transmission is still the dominant determinant of the size of a person’s home library in post-communist Czech society. We applied structural equation modelling to data (N = 1958) from the Czech Household Panel Survey (CHPS) and found that while the size of a person’s home library was significantly affected by the size of the parents’ library, the parents’ educational attainment had only an indirect effect that was manifested through the respondent’s education and reading preferences. Despite the dominant intergenerational transmission mechanism, the results also showed that individual characteristics such as education, age, and reading preferences had a significant effect on the objectified state of cultural capital in adulthood, even after controlling for family background. Regarding partner effect, women’s characteristics had stronger effects on home library size than men’s characteristics. The results therefore suggest that the objectified state of cultural capital in adulthood is shaped by the combined mechanisms of socialisation and active individual cultivation.

Keywords: cultural capital, home library size, intergenerational transmission, reading preferences, partner effect, gender

Received: September 8, 2022; Revised: May 24, 2023; Accepted: May 26, 2023; Prepublished online: May 30, 2023; Published: September 5, 2024  Show citation

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Raudenská, P. (2024). The Intergenerational Transmission of Cultural Capital: The Social Determinants of the Size of a Home Library. Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 60(4), 355-380. doi: 10.13060/csr.2023.034
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