Brief
The rapid development of fathering programs has been accompanied by renewed efforts to define good fathering. Programs to promote good fathering have emerged in complex social environments with limited evaluation of effective practice. This paper will address two major issues that fathering programs face in the 1990s. The first issue is the need for a guiding image of good fathering that can be applied to the diverse set of fathering programs that currently exist. The second issue is the identification of effective practice that moves beyond specific case studies to a more general approach to…
Brief
This brief summarizes key research findings on the relationship between father involvement and child outcomes. As rates of divorce and nonmarital childbearing have increased in recent decades, the percentage of children and fathers who live apart from one another has also increased. Yet our knowledge of how father involvement affects children's well-being in these situations is quite limited, since most research on fathers and children has focused on intact families. This brief summarizes that larger body of research, as well as the relatively small group of studies that consider fathers who…
Brief
The research on social fatherhood is complex, compelling, and vital to our understanding of family wellbeing. It is especially pertinent to the study of well-being in children. Initially, researchers used a simple explanatory model attempting to associate paternal presence/absence with isolated child outcomes. More recently, researchers and theorists have considered fathers' motivations, contexts,involvement, and enactment of the paternal role with greater complexity. (Author abstract)
Brief
Collecting better data on fathers, and more generally on men, is more than just a question of equity. The information is vital to federal and state officials struggling to reform the welfare and child support systems. Understanding fathers' roles in their children's lives could also help parents and social service providers better understand child development and meet the needs of children in single-mother households.
Brief
This issue brief looks at the extent to which fathers are involved in their kindergarteners' through 12th graders' schools using data from the 1996 National Household Education Survey (NHES:96). The involvement of fathers in two-parent and in father-only families is presented and contrasted with that of mothers in two-parent and in mother-only families.
