Adolescents with Two Nonresident Biological Parents: Living Arrangements, Parental Involvement, and Well-Being

We know little about children who have two living nonresident biological parents. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examines the diverse living arrangements of U.S. adolescents in this situation, the kinds of relationships they have with each of their nonresident parents, and the consequences of these arrangements for child well-being. Differences between these adolescents (N = 502) and those who have one nonresident biological parent (N = 4746) are also examined. Results point to certain groups of adolescents with two nonresident parents who are at particular risk of exhibiting higher levels of behavior problems (those living alone or with an aunt and uncle) or who, alternatively, are faring comparatively better (those living with biological relative caregivers or two nonbiological parent figures)

Parent-Adolescent Involvement: The Relative Influence of Parent Gender and Residence

The 1995 wave of the Add Health study is used to investigate the relative influence of parent gender and residence on patterns of parental involvement with adolescents. Adolescent reports (N = 17,330) of shared activities, shared communication, and relationship quality with both biological parents are utilized. A multidimensional scaling analysis reveals that parent gender explains most of the variance in parent-adolescent involvement, with residential status playing a secondary yet fundamental role in accounting for these patterns. Resident mothers who do not live with adolescents’ biological fathers engage in the broadest range of activities with their children. Unpartnered resident fathers display patterns of parenting that are as similar to mothers as they are to other fathers

Non-Resident Father Involvement and Adolescent Well- Being: Father Effects or Child Effects?

Is active fathering by nonresident fathers a cause or a consequence of adolescent well- being? Past studies of nonresident father involvement have assumed a father effects model in which active parenting by fathers improves adolescent adjustment. A child effects model, in which fathers respond to levels of well-being among their adolescent offspring by becoming more or less involved parents, could also account for the positive association between active fathering and adolescent adjustment. We utilize nationally representative data from the 1995 and 1996 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to estimate the cross-lagged associations between nonresident father involvement and the externalizing problems, internalizing problems, and academic achievement of 3,394 adolescents. Contrary to assumptions from a socialization perspective and findings from past research on nonresident fathers, our results do not support a father effects model. Our data are more consistent with a child effects model in which levels of adolescent well-being cause, rather than result from, levels of nonresident father involvement

Religious Identity, Religious Attendance, and Parental Control

Using a national sample of adolescents aged 10–18 years and their parents (N = 5,117), this article examines whether parental religious identity and religious participation are associated with the ways in which parents control their children. We hypothesize that both religious orthodoxy and weekly religious attendance are related to heightened levels of three elements of parental control: monitoring activities, normative regulations, and network closure. Results indicate that an orthodox religious identity for Catholic and Protestant parents and higher levels of religious attendance for parents as a whole are associated with increases in monitoring activities and normative regulations of American adolescents

The consequences of outside father involvement for children\u27s well-being

Given current rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing, nonresident paternal parenting is becoming increasingly common. Recent public sentiment has increasingly called for the involvement of these fathers in their children\u27s lives, under the assumption that such involvement will have positive benefits for children. Yet there is only limited evidence for this assumption. Previous studies of the effects of father involvement for children offer contradictory findings. My dissertation extends our knowledge of the consequences of paternal involvement for child well-being. Using data from the child supplement to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), I test, through a series of multivariate regression models, whether father visitation or the payment of child support is significantly associated with several measures of child well-being. A second related objective of this dissertation is to specify the conditions that promote the importance of nonresident father involvement for child well-being. It may be that father involvement is beneficial only under certain circumstances or for certain groups of children. In particular, I examine if the effects of visitation or child support vary with the child\u27s race, mother\u27s education, or whether the child was born out-of-wedlock. Differences by the child\u27s sex, mother\u27s current marital status, mother\u27s income, and time since separation are also examined. The results indicate that overall there is only limited evidence to support the hypothesis that nonresident father involvement has positive benefits for children. The strongest evidence is for the effect of child support in the domain of academic achievement. The results are similar when we look at father involvement at one point in time as well as over several years. Nor are the results any more conclusive when we contrast highly involved fathers with totally uninvolved fathers. In addition, there are few interactive effects of father involvement with other variables and no identifiable set of conditions emerged that increased or reduced the importance of father involvement for child well-being

From Plantation to Partnership Politics: Being Black in the Academy

This session examines the lingering impact of systems of domination and oppression on black faculty and staff on predominantly white campuses. It highlights ways these forces continue to stifle and impede the efforts by blacks to build meaningful and supportive alliances. Interactive and multi-media approaches are used to underscore practices for critical affirmation, self-recovery, intra-group partnerships and multi-cultural community building

Patterns of Nonresident Father Contact

We used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY79) from 1979 to 2002 and the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (CNLSY) from 1986 to 2002 to describe the number, shape, and population frequencies of U.S. nonresident father contact trajectories over a 14-year period using growth mixture models. The resulting four-category classification indicated that nonresident father involvement is not adequately characterized by a single population with a monotonic pattern of declining contact over time. Contrary to expectations, about two-thirds of fathers were consistently either highly involved or rarely involved in their children’s lives. Only one group, constituting approximately 23% of fathers, exhibited a clear pattern of declining contact. In addition, a small group of fathers (8%) displayed a pattern of increasing contact. A variety of variables differentiated between these groups, including the child’s age at father-child separation, whether the child was born within marriage, the mother’s education, the mother’s age at birth, whether the father pays child support regularly, and the geographical distance between fathers and children