Divorced Fathering: Testing A Social Interaction Model

描述（由申请人提供）：离婚父亲是美国增长最快的家庭类型之一，其增长速度比单身母亲更快。高质量的离婚后父亲参与能为孩子、母亲和社会带来直接的好处。不幸的是，随着时间的推移，父亲往往会脱离父母的角色。对父亲的社会支持是参与的关键决定因素，然而对养育子女的支持几乎没有研究。总的来说，关于离婚父亲的研究很少。我们所知道的大部分情况都来自于关于被监护母亲的报告、调查和人口普查数据。然而，这些数据来源没有提供关于父亲养育子女的可靠数据，也没有表达父亲的观点。因此，我们对质量参与或养育行为的决定因素知之甚少。父亲们有多少利用非正式网络来养育孩子？社会环境中的哪些因素促进了父亲的参与？

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Divorced fathers represent one of the fastest growing family types in the United States, increasing at a faster rate than single mothers. Quality post-divorce father involvement provides direct benefits for children, mothers, and society. Unfortunately, fathers tend to disengage in parenting roles over time. Social support for fathers is a key determinant of involvement, yet support for parenting is virtually unstudied. In general, there is sparse research on divorced fathers. Much of what is known comes from reports of custodial mothers, surveys, and census data. These data sources, however, do not provide reliable data on fathers' parenting or give expression to fathers' views. Consequently, we know little about determinants of quality involvement or parenting behaviors. How much do fathers utilize informal networks for parenting? What factors in the social environment promote father involvement? The aims of this study are to: 1) Address the scarcity of empirical research on divorced fathers by oversampling underrepresented subpopulations of custodial and noncustodial divorced fathers using random sampling; 2) Test social interactional hypotheses using never-before-collected data on father-child and father-confidant interactions; 3) Explore and enumerate fathers' reliance on various sources of social support for specific parenting needs; 4) Test social interactional models of confidant support as a predictor of father and child adjustment and father involvement by utilizing direct observation of father-confidant interactions, father-child interactions, and analogue parenting tasks; 5) Test identity theories of parental role strain and identity salience as predictors of fathers' adjustment and post-divorce involvement; and 6) Utilize longitudinal data to address theoretical propositions in support and identity theories yet to include divorced fathers' observed parenting. Specifically, the 4-year study will assess 244 divorced fathers over 24 months. Three waves of father data will be collected: Baseline, 9, and 18 months. Full-custody and no-custody fathers will be oversampled to obtain a total of 90 full-, 90 co-, and 64 no-custody fathers. Eligible fathers must have been divorced within the last 24 months and have a boy or a girl between the ages of 4 and 10. Based on pilot data, we expect 90% of fathers will recruit confidants and roughly 83% of the fathers will potentially have children participating in father-child assessments.