Fathers in Families

The role of the father for a family and his children has varied greatly throughout history. This book focuses on the role of the father in the contemporary two-parent heterosexual family. Of eight longitudinal studies from several Western countries, six focus on the socialization outcomes of the children, and two concentrate on parental satisfaction. The book gives a contemporary insight into the father and his role in changing family dynamics. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Dorothea E. Dette-Hagenmeyer is a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology at the Ludwigsburg University of Education, Germany. She earned her Ph.D. from the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. She conducted research into family (parenting, co-parenting, coping, close relationships), gender roles, work-life-balance, and evidence-based parenting programs and has a teaching record in research methods, developmental, social and positive psychology. Andrea B. Erzinger achieved a Master's Degree in Education, Private Law and Political Science at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and is currently a research assistant at the University of Teacher Education (PHSG), St. Gallen, Switzerland. Her research interests are social and emotional development over the life course, familial intergenerational relationships, school-family-interaction and development of competencies. Barbara Reichle is Professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology at Ludwigsburg University of Education, Germany. She completed a Doctoral degree in Psychology from Trier University, Germany. Her research focuses on the socio-emotional development of children within families and schools, parenting, intimate relationships, the transition to parenthood, and justice in the family. She is co-author of two evidence-based evaluated prevention programs (attachment and marital satisfaction for young parents, prosocial behaviour in elementary school children).

Introduction: The changing role of the father in the family 1. Family structure, maternal employment, and change in children's externalizing problem behaviour: Differences by age and self-regulation 2. Predicting adolescents' parent-child relationship quality from parental personality, marital conflict and adolescents' personality 3. Intergenerational transmission of maternal and paternal parenting beliefs: The moderating role of interaction quality 4. Parents' depressive symptoms and children's adjustment over time are mediated by parenting, but differentially for fathers and mothers 5. Gender-specific macro- and micro-level processes in the transmission of gender role orientation in adolescence: The role of fathers 6. Effects of different facets of paternal and maternal control behaviour on early adolescents' perceived academic competence 7. Couples' evaluations of fatherhood in different stages of the family life cycle 8. Paternal involvement elevates trajectories of life satisfaction during transition to parenthood