Understanding the connection between parental and filial aspirations - Do family relationships matter?

Educational aspirations are a key driver of educational inequalities. This article explores how such aspirations are transmitted within families, drawing on psychological research and extending the Wisconsin Model. Challenging its assumption of a universal parental influence on children’s aspirations, we build on Coleman’s notion of an interplay between human and social capital. We argue that high parental aspirations shape children’s aspirations only when there is close intrafamily exchange, which builds the channel to transmit parental aspirations to children. Using data from the National Educational Panel Study, we distinguish between realistic and idealistic aspirations from 6,053 children and their parents and structural and process related aspects of intrafamily social capital. A series of linear probability models find assumed interaction effects only for realistic aspirations and process-related aspects of intrafamily social capital. Consequently, high parental aspirations are specifically transmitted to children when there is strong and close interaction within the family and aspirations are understood as expectations.