ONE-THIRD of Irish 15-year-old students never, or hardly ever, discuss political or social issues with their parents - and the lack of such discussion is harming their exam performance.
That is one finding of a study presented at a conference in Dublin yesterday, which reported that students who regularly discuss politics with their elders perform significantly better in international tests.
The study of 4,500 15-year-old students, conducted as part of a wider OECD Programme of International Student Assessment, reveals that students who regularly engage in activities with their parents, such as sitting around the dinner table, also tend to perform better.
The report, Ready for Tomorrow's World?, paints a picture of Irish 15-year-olds who have significantly lower than average access to a study desk at home, as well as classic literature, poetry books and art in the home.
But Irish teenagers fared above average on almost all "affluence indicators" - or household possessions thought to indicate wealth - including mobile phones, cars and dishwashers, as opposed to "cultural" possessions.
For example, more than three-quarters of Irish students report having three or more televisions in their home, compared to an OECD average of 52 per cent. However, while most affluence indicators led to higher achievement in tests, the report finds that students living in a household with three or more televisions obtained lower scores in science than those with one or two television sets.
Students with a premium cable TV package were significantly outperformed by students who did not have such a package.
Overall, three-quarters of students say they eat dinner with their parents several times a week.
But more than half say they engage with their parents on political or social issues a few times a year at most, followed by 23 per cent who discuss books, films or television with this frequency.