The Relationship Between Child Welfare Workers' Ambivalent Sexism and Their Beliefs about Father Involvement

Background:  The current study examined whether ambivalent sexism on the part of child welfare workers was related to their beliefs about involving fathers. Ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996) posits that gender stereotypes include subjectively positive beliefs in addition to hostile beliefs that both serve to perpetuate patriarchal systems. Research over the last few decades has consistently found that fathers are not routinely included in the provision of child welfare services, with sexism on the part of workers posited as a possible cause.  However, this relationship has not previously been tested empirically.

Methods:  Data were collected using a cross-sectional online survey design.  A convenience sample of current front-line child welfare workers in the United States (N = 490) were recruited to complete an online survey via two methods: 1) administrators of public and private child welfare agencies that agreed to forward the invitation to their staff; and 2) direct email using publically available email lists to individuals who may have met the study’s eligibility criteria.  Participants reflected the demographics of child welfare workers reported in previous research as most were female (84%), white (74%), and relatively new to the field (38% ≤ 3 years).  Ambivalent sexism was assessed using the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) and the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI).  The Dakota Father Friendly Assessment (DFFA; White et al., 2001), originally developed for Head Start programs, was modified to assess beliefs about father involvement in child welfare (DFFA-CW). 

Subscales from the ASI and AMI were entered into a latent class analysis (LCA) to determine the number of sexism profiles needed to characterize the heterogeneity of respondents.  Final model selection was based on a review of various fit indices, classification quality metrics, and qualitative interpretability of the classes.  The relationship between the sexism profiles and beliefs about father involvement were tested using the ML modified three-step approach with the DFFA-CW scales as the distal outcome.  A Wald test was used to determine the overall significance for each DFFA-CW scale with post-hoc tests used to determine which classes were significantly different.

Results:  Results of the LCA revealed four sexism profiles: Non-Sexist, Low Hostility to Men/No Benevolence to Men, Low Ambivalence, and Moderate Ambivalence.  Results of the Wald and post-hoc tests indicated that participants with profiles suggesting less sexist beliefs had more positive attitudes about father involvement and had a lower preference for working solely with mothers.  Sexism profile was not related to participants’ stated father involvement behaviors such as conducting home visits when fathers are present, including fathers in case planning discussions, and recruiting fathers or paternal relatives as placement options. 

Implications:  Findings suggest some support for the theory that sexism may be one reason for child welfare workers’ lack of engagement with fathers.  Implications for practice include developing training that increases knowledge of fathers’ importance, challenges gendered stereotypes about parenting, and increases workers’ comfort in providing services to men.  Future research should examine possible additional factors such as attitudes around race or class in addition to gender.