Cognitieve competenties van jonge kinderen en structurele en culturele gezinskenmerken: ontwikkelingen en samenhangen?

Abstract

In this paper three questions are answered: 1) are there developments in the language and math performance of young children; 2) are there developments in a number of family characteristics (parental educational level, ethnicity, home language, proficiency level in Dutch, and reading behavior); and 3) are there relations between the children's competencies and their parents' characteristics? Data from three waves of the PRIMA cohort study (1996, 1998 and 2000) were analyzed with one-level and multilevel techniques. The sample included a total of 24,130 pupils at 688 primary schools. The results showed there to be just one development, namely a slight rise in language performance between 1996 and 1998.