Taking Advertising Literacy to a Higher Level: An Exploratory Multilevel Analysis of Children's Advertising Literacy

As few studies focus on how children’s coping with advertising is affected by their environment, the present study uses multilevel analysis to explore the role of both primary (i.e. parents) and secondary socializing agents (i.e. classmates, teachers) in children’s advertising literacy. The results show that children’s cognitive advertising literacy and attitudes toward advertising are to a large extent determined by class-level processes. Their moral advertising literacy is a more individual matter, yet greatly influenced by children’s teachers – though in a remarkable manner. Parents do not seem to have much of an impact, except through socioeconomic factors such as educational background.