(see Poster Gallery) Father Involvement, Race-Ethnicity and Immigration Status, and Kindergarten Behavioral Outcomes

Background and Purpose: Despite increasing evidence that fathers contribute independently to their children’s well-being and development, most studies of parent involvement still neither designate the fathers as the target parent for research nor control for fathers’ effects on children’s outcomes. Given that many fathers have spent more time with their children during the pandemic, better knowledge of the impact of fathers on children’s school success is timely and critical to facilitating appropriate father involvement in their children’s lives. Additionally, as the roles and practices of fathers are highly context-dependent and culturally defined, this study looked at how cultural contexts play out differently for fathers, particularly, those from different ethnic groups. Thus, this study examined whether and to what extent resident and non-resident fathers’ various forms of involvement and contact with their children are associated with social-emotional outcomes of children during the kindergarten year—a critical and sensitive period for later school success—and whether the impact of father involvement differs among particular racial-ethnic and immigrant subgroups.

Methods: Data were drawn from the base year of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011) using the spring kindergarten parent interview responses and teacher assessments. Our initial study sample included 9,725 children who were included in OLS regressions to first investigate whether father residence was associated with teacher reports of self-control, interpersonal skills, external problem behaviors, and internal problem behaviors among children in kindergarten. Subsequent analyses consisted of sub-samples of 7,656 children of resident fathers and 2,069 children of non-resident fathers to investigate whether resident fathers’ time spent playing with the child on a school day or on the weekend and whether non-resident fathers’ more recent contact or frequency of recent contact was associated with teacher reports of self-control, interpersonal skills, external problem behaviors, and internal problem behaviors, respectively.

Results: Among the major findings, the study revealed that father residence was associated with more self-control, better interpersonal skills, fewer external problem behaviors, and fewer internal problem behaviors among all children in kindergarten, but father residence was associated with worse self-control for children of Hispanic immigrant fathers. Among children of resident fathers, father’s time spent playing with the child on a school day was associated with more self-control and better interpersonal skills, but was associated with worse self-control among children of Asian immigrant fathers and more internal problem behaviors among children of Black immigrant fathers. Among children of nonresident fathers, father’s more recent contact with child; the number of days the child saw the biological father; and the number of nights that the child stayed with the biological father were each associated with fewer internal problem behaviors.

Conclusions and Implications: Taken together, the findings reinforce the importance of both resident and non-resident fathers’ involvement in the day-to-day lives of their children, but also highlight that there may be cultural differences in the ways that fathers influence their children’s behavioral outcomes in school. Thus, increasing father involvement may be more beneficial for some racial-ethnic and immigrant groups than others.