An emerging trend in recent research has involved determining the impacts of paternal involvement on their children's development. Unfortunately, research in this area has been riddled with theoretical and methodological problems, including narrow conceptualizations of involvement, overdependence on data from father-absent families and samples lacking ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, and over-reliance cross-sectional designs. These shortcomings have limited our understanding of the complexity involved in fathers' approach parental tasks and of how variability in this complexity affects children's learning and development. Inconsistencies in available evidence on the impact of father involvement have further hampered efforts to develop federal "family supportive" policies include an appreciation for the unique and diverse roles fathers play in their children's development. The intent of the current project is to overcome many of these limitations. This project will addresses the following research questions: First, how does father involvement in school and home settings vary as a function of child age, family structure, family socioeconomic status, and ethnicity? Second, are higher levels of father involvement in these settings associated with more positive behavioral and academic outcomes for children than lower levels of involvement? Third, is father involvement stable across time? Is the impact of father involvement on children's behavior and academic achievement stable over time? Fourth, does father involvement mediate the impact of school-, neighborhood-, and family-level resources on children? Fifth, what are the antecedents of father involvement in home and school settings, and do these antecedents remain stable across time? Drawing from a nationally representative data base of U. S. children and their families (i.e., the first and second waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics-Child Development Supplement), this project will explore how demographic and behavioral variables are related to paternal involvement in home and school settings, and how parental involvement impacts children's development. In overcoming limitations of previous research in this area, the current study may provide more definitive conclusions than afforded by previous research on the antecedents and characteristics of father involvement and the extent to which differences in these parental characteristics and patterns of involvement influence child development.
Interest in the roles played by fathers in the development of their children has increased dramatically in recent years. This increased interest has been paralleled by a shift in societal expectations for fatherhood. Although extant evidence indicates that some fathers devote more time to caring for their children than was the case in previous generations, these observed increases in involvement are small, and fathers continue to spend significantly less time than mothers caring for children. In addition, neither researchers nor practitioners have a clear understanding of the reasons that some fathers are more involved in their children's care than others whether these reasons differ for different socioeconomic and ethnic groups, or the extent to which differences in paternal involvement affect children's social development and academic achievement. Findings from this study will add to our understanding of the unique ways in which paternal involvement impacts their children's learning and development and will identify the demographic and cultural factors associated with higher levels of father involvement. Information gained from this project will provide a useful framework for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in the time when families are struggling with changing societal expectations for fathers and parental roles are being refined at both the familial level and the cultural level.
