The role of between-parent values agreement in parent-to-child transmission of academic values

The present study investigates the intergenerational transmission of academic task values within family in early adolescence. Social learning processes are assumed to operate through the students’ perceptions of their parents’ values. The major goal of this study is to show that this values transmission is facilitated by between-parent value agreement.Based on a longitudinal data set including 1019 German students, their mothers (N = 847), and fathers (N = 733), structural equation models showed significant effects of the parents’ task values regarding math and German language as academic subjects on the respective task values reported by the students, mediated through the student-perceived parental values. This transmission chain was only found if the between-parent agreement was high.The results are discussed in terms of parent-specific mechanisms fostering transmission if both parents agree on academic values, such as an improved perceptive accuracy as well as the increased salience and mutual reinforcement of parental messages.