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Journal Article By age 3, children from privileged families have heard 30 million more words than children from underprivileged families. Longitudinal data on 42 families examined what accounted for enormous differences in rates of vocabulary growth. Children turned out to be like their parents in stature, activity level, vocabulary resources, and language and interaction styles. Follow-up data indicated that the 3-year-old measures of accomplishment predicted third grade school achievement.
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Journal Article This study examines the role of biological and social fathers in the lives of low-income African American adolescent girls (N= 302). Sixty-five percent of adolescents identified a primary father; two thirds were biological and one third were social fathers. Adolescents reported more contentious and less close relationships with biological than with social fathers. Multivariate regression analyses indicated that daughters' perceptions of anger and alienation from fathers was related to greater emotional and behavioral problems for adolescents, whereas perceptions of trust and communication…
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Journal Article This article examines the contribution of economic circumstances, neighborhood context, and cultural factors to explaining race/ethnic differences in fathering in two-parent families. Data come from the 1997 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a nationally representative sample of children younger than age 13. Black children's fathers exhibit less warmth but monitor their children more, Hispanic fathers monitor their children less, and both minority groups exhibit more responsibility for child rearing than White fathers. Economic circumstances contribute to…
This book analyzes how the absence of African American fathers affects their children, their relationships, and society as a whole, while countering the notion that father absence and family fragmentation within the African American community is inevitable. It begins by offering possible explanations for the decline in marriage among African American families, including the limited economic prospects of many men who live in the inner city that impacts their ability to provide for a family. The book then considers marriage from an economic perspective, emphasizing that it is a wealth-producing…
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Journal Article The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine the impact of a job-training program, the Georgia Fatherhood Program (GFP), on the employment levels and wages of low-income, non-custodial parents. A pretest/posttest design was created to compare GFP participants to a similar comparison group. Results of the research indicate that GFP participants experienced a significant increase in employment and gained wages similar to the employed comparison group. However repeated measures analysis revealed that previously employed GFP participants did not significantly increase their wages. The…
