Social i zatioti as the source of continuity hetween generations and a buffer for social change has received tnuch attentioti over more than a century (Beck, Bruner, and Dobson, 1975;Giddings, 1897;Jennings and Niemi, 1981 ). Every socialization theory gives importance to the transmission of values, beliefs, traditions and attitudes from parents to their children, both through deliberate actions and reactions, and through non-verbal communication and examples. Such influences from parents to their children are considered important factors in the formation of attitudes (Dalhouse andFrideres, 1996;Jennings and Niemi, 1981). The parental influence on attitudes toward three issues that have been causing controversy in the Netherlands are subject to the present research; these attitudes involve homosexuality, euthanasia and the presence of ethnic minorities. We investigate the influence of the parents on their children's attitudes toward these issues and study to what extent successes in transmi.ssion are dependent on family characteristics. In doing so, we are able to address the influence of socialization dependent on family relations and family composition. The central research question of our contribution reads: to wliat extent do parents affect attitudes of their children and to what extent does the influence vary with family characteristics?Research on attitude similarity between generations is not new. We will however improve on existing research on the intergenerational transmission of attitudes in two ways. First, by studying the facilitating or hatnpering characteristics of the fatnily for the transmission of attitudes. We take family relations, as well as family composition into account in our research. In this way, we are able to define conditions under which parents are more or less successful in influencing their children's attitudes. Second, we will study the similarities between parents and children in three different attitudes, to test the generalizability of socialization effects. We chose attitudes toward homosexuality, toward euthanasia and toward ethnic minorities. All of these are topics of debate in the Netherlands, and have been so for the last decades. We deliberately chose to investigate subjects more and less influenced by religious beliefs, in order to control for religious pressures. Furthermore, these issues have seen conflicting trends in public support in the Netherlands, which could lead to

In this article we study the bias caused by the conventional retrospective measurement of parental high cultural activities in the effects of parental high cultural activities and educational attainment on son's or daughter's high cultural activities. Multi-informant data show that there is both random measurement error and correlated error in the respondent's report of parental high cultural activities. Correlated measurement error is the consequence of the fact that adult children who have higher rates of high cultural activities, report higher levels of parental cultural activities than the parents themselves do. When controls for both types of measurement error are included in structural models, the total intergenerational effect of parental high cultural activities appears to be larger than in a model without controls for measurement error, but the direct intergenerational effect is not biased if educational attainment is controlled for. The effect of educational attainment on high cultural activities is larger in models that correct for measurement error. In addition, the effect of educational attainment is stronger than the effect of parental high cultural activities, both with and without correction for measurement error.

Although much is known about changes in the conjugal family, little is known about trends in contact between parents and adult (independently living) children. Using unique survey data, we study changes in contact with the mother and the father in five western countries over a 15-year period (Austria, West Germany, Great Britain, the United States, and Italy). We describe changes and we examine the role of compositional changes in the trend. We find no evidence for a decline in intergenerational contact, in contrast to notions of individualism. In two countries, there has been an increase in contact with the mother and in three countries no net trend is observed. Contact with the father has not changed. Other forms of contact (e.g., telephone contact) have increased. Some compositional changes have had a downward pressure on the trend, leading to a decline in contact (i.e., rising education, declining church attendance), but these pressures have been compensated by counteracting compositional changes (declining sibsize) and by behavioral changes.Keywords Family change Á Intergenerational relations Á Individualization Á Trends Á Parent-child contact Résumé Alors que beaucoup de connaissances ont été accumulées sur la famille conjugale, on dispose de peu d'éclairage sur l'évolution de la fréquence des contacts entre parents et enfants adultes noncohabitants. A l'aide de données d'enquête tout à fait uniques, cette étude explore la fréquence des contacts avec la mère et avec le père dans cinq pays occidentaux, sur une période de 15 ans. Les changements sont décrits, de même que le rôle joué par les évolutions de la composition de la -008-9176-4 population dans ceux-ci. Aucun recul des contacts entre générations n'est mis en évidence, contrairement à ce que les notions d'individualisme pourraient laissent supposer. Dans deux des pays, on observe une hausse des contacts avec la mère, et dans trois autres, aucune tendance nette n'émerge. La fréquence des contacts avec le père n'a pas varié. D'autres formes de contacts (par exemple, les contacts télé-phoniques) sont en augmentation. Certains facteurs de composition ont eu un effet à la baisse sur les contacts (par exemple, la hausse du niveau d'instruction, le déclin de la pratique religieuse), mais ces effets ont été compensés par des facteurs ayant des conséquences inverses (réduction de la taille des fratries) et par des changements de comportements.123 Eur J Population (2009) 25:257-276 DOI 10.1007/s10680

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