The influence of reading socialization on the level of books read in adult life was investigated for birth cohorts who finished secondary education between 1975 and 1998. Three forms of reading socialization were taken into account: socialization in the parental home, literary socialization at secondary school, and socialization through popular culture. Data on these modes of socialization were gathered by questioning the socializing agents (parents and literature teachers), in addition to the target group of (former) students. The level of books read was measured using direct indicators of authors' prestige in the literary field. Multi-level analyses show positive effects of parents with a high reading level and number of hours spent on literary education at school. Frequent watching of television at a young age was found to affect reading level negatively. However, trends in reading level among cohorts could not be explained by trends in reading socialization. #
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