Taking Children’s Advertising Literacy to a Higher Level: A Multilevel Analysis Exploring the Influence of Parents, Peers, and Teachers

Abstract

Few studies focus on how children’s environment affects their ability to cope with contemporary advertising. This study uses multilevel analysis techniques to explore how parents’, classmates’, and teachers’ characteristics influence primary school children’s dispositional advertising literacy, while acknowledging these children’s own individual features. To this end, three surveys were conducted, resulting in four data sets linking information obtained from 9- to 12-year-old children (n = 392), their peer group (children aggregated per class; n = 22), their parents (n = 191), and their teachers (n = 22). The results show that children’s cognitive and attitudinal advertising literacy is to a large extent (12%-13%) determined by class-level processes (especially peers). Children’s moral advertising literacy is primarily an individual matter (1%), albeit greatly influenced by their teachers. In general, parents’ impact is mainly expressed through socioeconomic factors.