Importance of Oral Language as a Mediator in the Cultural Capital Model of Kindergarten Achievement

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Cultural Capital in Early Childhood and Linkages to Adolescence

Abstract

We extend the traditional cultural capital model by adding a key component of habitus into a testable quantitative model, in which parenting and habitus mediate the relationship between SES and student achievement. This key component is the individual’s oral language skill, which we include as a mediator of the effects of SES on kindergarten achievement. We take advantage of the oral language screener administered to all children in the ECLS-K: 2011.We found that SES strongly predicts oral language skill, which functions as a strong mediator of the effects of SES on both kindergarten achievement and the teacher’s judgment of this achievement. Oral language skill provides an important addition to cultural capital models of the early achievement process.

Authors

• QING Zhang, University of California - Irvine

• George Farkas, University of California - Irvine