Does father involvement increase children's educational attainment at primary school?

父亲花在育儿上的时间比以往任何时候都多(例如，2017年父亲研究所)，但这对孩子的影响尚不清楚。父亲的育儿参与应该对孩子的认知和教育结果产生积极影响(Lamb 2010)，但几乎没有直接证据支持这一点。我们的研究建议在英国进行第一次纵向分析，探索父亲的育儿参与与孩子在小学的成就之间的关系。小学教育是孩子发展的关键阶段，因为它是孩子首先从家庭环境过渡到学校的时间点。在这个早期阶段取得的成就可以塑造教育途径，从而塑造未来的就业前景和机会。以前对母亲或“父母”的研究表明，父母的早期参与对儿童发展至关重要(例如，Hsin和Felfe 2014)，但我们不知道父亲对孩子教育的影响是否与母亲不同，或者父亲的照顾是否对男孩、女孩或在孩子一生中的某些阶段特别重要，而不分性别。鉴于英国教育部(2018)现在的报告显示，超过四分之一的英格兰儿童没有做好上学准备，因为他们的沟通和识字水平低于预期水平，因此迫切需要探索父亲育儿参与的潜在影响，而联合国儿童基金会(2018)将英国列为全球41个小学教育不平等最富裕国家中垫底三分之一的国家。我们认为，父亲式的学龄前或学龄前护理可以帮助支持特定学术科目的进步，缩小成就上的性别差距，甚至缓解贫困的有害影响。利用千禧年队列调查(MCS)的家庭数据和英国国家学生数据库(NPD)的儿童官方教育记录，我们将探讨父亲参与育儿是否、如何以及在什么阶段影响孩子在小学的成绩。MCS在四个相关的生命阶段收集数据：学龄前(9个月和3岁)、入学(5岁)、中期(7岁)和学校结束(11岁)。我们的分析将跟踪比以前可能的更长、更全面的小学教育轨迹(例如，Cano等人)。2019年)，侧重于学龄前和学龄儿童父亲的育儿参与如何影响儿童在小学三个关键阶段(5岁、7岁和11岁)的核心科目(例如数学、英语、科学)和非核心科目(例如艺术、信息和通信技术)的成绩。研究问题是：1。父亲的参与是否会提高孩子的小学成绩？具体地说：(A)父亲的学前参与有多重要？(B)孩子的性别是否缓和了父亲参与对教育成就的影响？(C)父亲的参与是否缓和了已知的贫困的负面影响？2.哪种类型的父子保育活动对孩子的小学成绩影响最大，这在孩子一生的哪个阶段最重要？该项目将对文学做出原创性的贡献，并对学术和政策辩论做出贡献，这是第一项基于英国的研究，确定了父亲缩小成就差距和/或缓和性别和社会经济地位的已知影响的方法。这些发现将与包括政策制定者、从业者、教师和家庭在内的一系列利益攸关方相关。我们的影响战略是与父亲学院(项目Co-I)的传播部负责人共同制定的，他将利用学校、幼儿和卫生部门现有的联系人，让他们参与一种共同制作的方法，指导分析，并将结果转化为适合他们特定需求的相关和有影响力的资源。

Fathers spend more time on childcare than ever before (e.g. Fatherhood Institute 2017) but the implications of this on children are unclear. Fathers' childcare involvement should have a positive effect on children's cognitive and educational outcomes (Lamb 2010) but there is little direct evidence to support this. Our study proposes to conduct the first longitudinal analysis in England that explores the relationship between fathers' childcare involvement and their children's attainment at primary school.Primary education is a pivotal stage of child development because it is the point at which children first make the transition from the home environment to school. Achievements at this early stage can shape educational pathways and thus future employment prospects and opportunities. Previous research with mothers or 'parents' more generally suggests that early parental involvement is critical for child development (e.g. Hsin and Felfe 2014) but we do not know whether fathers impact their children's education differently to mothers, or whether paternal care is particularly important for boys, girls or at certain stages in the child's life regardless of gender. There is an urgent need to explore the potential effect of paternal childcare involvement given the Department for Education (2018) now report that over a quarter of children in England are not primary 'school-ready' because they fall below the expected level for communication and literacy, whilst UNICEF (2018) ranks the UK in the bottom third of 41 of the world's richest countries for inequalities in primary school education. We propose that paternal pre- or school age care could help to support progression in particular academic subjects, close gender gaps in attainment and even moderate the detrimental effects of poverty. Using household data from the Millennium Cohort Survey (MCS) linked with official educational records of children from the National Pupil Database (NPD) in England, we will explore whether, how and at what stage fathers' childcare involvement affects children's attainment at primary school. The MCS collects data at four relevant life stages: pre-school (9 months and 3 years), school entry (age 5), in the middle (age 7) and at the end (age 11) of school. Our analysis will track longer, more comprehensive primary school educational trajectories than has been previously possible (e.g. Cano et al. 2019), focussing on how pre-school and school-age paternal childcare involvement affects children's attainment in core (e.g. Maths, English, Science) and non-core (e.g. Art, ICT) subjects at the three key stages of primary school (ages 5, 7 and 11). The research questions are:1. Does paternal involvement increase primary school attainment for children? And specifically:(a) How important is fathers' pre-school involvement?(b) Does the sex of the child moderate the effect of paternal involvement on educational attainment?(c) Does father involvement moderate the known negative effects of poverty?2. Which kinds of paternal-childcare activities have the strongest effect on a child's primary school attainment, and at what stage of the child's life is this most important? The project will make an original contribution to the literature, and contribute to scholarly and policy debates, by being the first UK-based study identifying the ways in which fathers may narrow attainment gaps and/or moderate the known effects of gender and socio-economic status. The findings will be relevant to a range of stakeholders including policymakers, practitioners, teachers and families. Our impact strategy has been developed with the Head of Communications at the Fatherhood Institute (project Co-I) who will draw on existing contacts within the school, early years and health sectors to involve them in a method of coproduction that steers the analysis and turns the results into relevant and impactful resources that are tailored to their specific needs.