1. ResultsAbstract Method s Parental Recognition of Good vs. Change: An Evaluation of Paternal Co-parenting using Maternal and Paternal Narratives Sarah R. Brunskill, Charles R. Leer, Jeffrey T. Cookston Psychology Department, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA Discussion Gender roles have always been a large focus in the discussion of child rearing (Lamb, 2004); but as pointed out before, past research has mainly focused on the maternal aspect of this large complex puzzle (Pleck, 1997). As the results indicate, the interpretations of the father-child relationship from both the paternal and maternal viewpoint of what the father does good is significantly consistent and highly correlated. This means that when both parents remarked on similar dimensions in which the father excels in his relationship with the child they tended to do so at a similar level. However, similar patterns were not observed in response to the change questions. Unlike his good behavior, parents did not consistently agree about the level of change father needed to apply to the father-child relationship. One possible explanation for this may be the different views each parent has about the father’s role in his job as a parent, a difference of options about what needs to change or improve in the father-child relationship; therefore, each parent was not identifying the same dimensions within the narrative sample and resulting in a poor correlation. This leads us to question, in terms of identification of what father does well vs. the identification in what the father need to change, do sex and gender role affect ones interpretation of a parents ability to parent? It could be argued that this lack of consistency is due to the strong gender roles perpetuated in our society and the differences in men and women resulting from these sex and gender roles as described by gender socialization theory (Harris, 1995). Several limitations were presented in this study. One limitation exists in the way the data were reduced because only mean scores were used for each behavior, not the number of codes for a particular dimension were not assessed nor the percentage times a particular dimension was seen. These data do not capture the number of codes for a particular dimension that were not assessed, nor was the percentage of the time a particular dimension was seen noted. Such analyses pose interesting questions for the next steps in data analysis. Additionally, although some of our interviews were in Spanish, we did not explore the role of race and ethnicity in these responses. We believe these results provide important preliminary work to stimulate work in the area of the social construction of father involvement within families. Narrative Measures After the parent responses were audio taped and transcribed, the narrative data was then transcribed for analysis as text files. To assess parent evaluations of father’s parenting a two- step narrative coding method was used in which cases were first separated into prepositional statements and then the statements were coded for the presence of behaviors (Perez-Brena, Cookston, Fabricious & DeGuzman, 2007). Once the scripts were unitized, each unit was coded for five behavioral dimensions. The dimensional codes were derived from the generative fathering theory (Dollahite, Hawkins, & Brotherson, 1997) and are described below: Emotional quality (EQ)- the emotional aspects of the parent-child relationship Responsiveness (RE)- the fathers ability to talk to and help the child Provisioning (PR)- the amount of financial support a father provides Investment (IN)- the time commitment a father gives his children including the activities he participates in Discipline (DI)-the level of control that the fathers attempts to have on his children The dimensions of Emotional Quality, Responsiveness and Investment were guided by the work of Lamb, Pleck, Charnov, Levine (1987), and Provisioning and Discipline were developed after mining the narrative for themes. We coded the narratives for the presence and level of the following dimensions of good fathering: emotional quality, responsiveness, provisioning, investment, and discipline. Each code was given a score of 1-3 where 1 meant the father displayed a low level or negative form of a dimension, 2 meant a father showed a dimension at a medium rate, and 3 meant a father displayed a dimension at a high rate or in a positive manner. Each unit could be coded for the presence of many dimensions as fit the statement. For example, the statement; “I’m a little hard on them (EQ2)/ especially since I discipline them a lot (DI3).” would be coded as emotional quality and disciple due to the reference to the father’s discipline. The score of one unit does not affect the score of another, thus, they are considered separate entities. Reliability Similar to the unitizing reliability protocol, a gold standard was created for 20% of the narratives, which was used as a standard to test each individual coder for reliability dimensional coding. A Cohen’s Kappa was used to determine there was a high reliability for all coders (EQ, k=.64; RE, k=.55; IN, k=.79; PR, k=.88; DI, k=.61) (Perez-Brena et al., 2007). Now that the contributions of fathers to the well-being of their children have become more apparent, attention has turned to approaches offering first hand knowledge of how parents socially construct their parenting. These results report on 297 families in which mothers and fathers in families identified three things the father did well and three things he needed to change or improve in his parenting. We coded these narratives for five themes and we then explored the differences between the responses by mothers and fathers within families. Significant correlations were observed between mother and father reports in response to what he did well; however, mothers and fathers did not correlate when identifying the behaviors they believed the father needed to improve or change in his relationship with the child. T-test comparisons showed that two of the eight dimensions indicated significance, suggesting that there are differences in the way that mothers and fathers construct meaning regarding their relationship with their child. Table 1: Correlations for Mom and dad report of what dad does well Table 4: Table 4: Paired Sample T-Test for Mom and Dad report of what dad needs to change/improve with Means and Standard Deviations Results Method Abstract Measures Table 3: Paired Sample T-Test for Mom and Dad report of what dad does well with Means and Standard Deviations Introduction Past research on parenting has been centered on the mother’s relationship with the child, and has often neglected the father-child relationship (Lamb, 2004). It was less than a decade ago when fathers were considered “the forgotten contributors to child development” (Lamb, 1975). Gone are the days of father’s role in parenting as minimal (Pleck, 1997). Current research has shown that fathers contribute to children’s adjustment net of what mother’s involvement explains (Amato & Riviera, 1999; Cookston & Finlay, 2006). However, while father’s behaviors have been shown to explain children’s adjustment, what is considerably less well known is how parents make sense of their behaviors with their children and the effect, either positive or negative, such explanations have on parents’ relationships with their children. With the social construction of sex and gender roles in our society, gender role norms influence definition of self, but also those around us and how we determine their functioning with in our own schema of our world. Gender role stereotypes have the potential to distort definitions of good parenting and may suggest mothers are more nurturing, emotional, capable at raising children, and loving; whereas men may be thought of as less emotional, stronger, viewed as a better disciplinarian and better suited for hard labor (Pleck, 1997). Although these stereotypes are viewed as outdated and extreme (Lamb, 2004), such beliefs may influence individual social constructions of gender, even in the context of parenting (Amato & Riviera, 1999). Nevertheless, these stereotypes leave the definition of the modern day father’s role in parenting, leaving one to fall back upon the outdated gender roles as guidance In this study, we asked parents to explain what dad does well and what he needs to change in his relationship with the child. From a social construction of sex and gender roles perspective, it is likely that the mother’s and father’s have different approaches to parenting leading us to explore differences in the evaluations of the partner’s parenting. This paper examines the differences between mother and father evaluations of father to explore how parents socially construct the paternal role of parenting and the meanings that they conclude from such constructions. Participants A sample of 393 (199 European American and 194 Mexican American) families from Phoenix, Arizona and Riverside, California participated in the study. Depending on the parent’s preference, they were interviewed in Spanish (n = 222) or English (n = 464). For a full description of the longitudinal study, see the following website: http://devpsych.sfsu.edu/pays. Complete and audible narrative data were obtained on 297of the mother and father pairs.http://devpsych.sfsu.edu/pays Procedures Mothers, fathers/stepfathers, and early adolescent participants completed an approximately two hour individual interview on parent behavior, child adjustment and family functioning. Both parents were interviewed about their relationship with the child and the social context of the family. An audio-taped narrative portion of the interview provided fathers an opportunity to evaluate themselves as a parent on both what they do good and what they think they need to improve or change within their relationship with the child, examples below. The mothers were asked a similar question in that they were to describe and list what the father does well and needs to change or improve in his relationship. After the interviews were conducted, the tapes were transcribed for further analysis. Father-good question “Think about yourself as a (Dad/Step-Dad). Think about the kind of (father/step-father) you are. Think about the way you act, the things you say and do, as a parent. Take a moment to think about yourself and the kind of (father/step-father) that you are to (child). What are the 2 or 3 things you do as a (father/step-father) that you think you do best?” Correlation Among Mean Scores Across Reporters of What Dad Needs to Change Second, bivariate correlations assessed the degree to which average mother and father scores related to one another in terms of what they thought the father could change or improve in the father-child relationship (Table 2). As the diagonal shows,only two of the eight associations, responsiveness and emotional quality, were found to be significant. With the results showing such poor correlations between the parents identification of what the father needs to “change or improve”, suggesting that when mothers and fathers both mention a dimension, they report different levels. Comparisons of Mother and Father Mean Scores Finally, paired sample t-tests compared mother and father mean scores on the good and change questions. The results indicated that when mother and father on good (Table 3) responsiveness and investments showed significance, while no dimensional pairs indicated significance within the change condition (Table 4). *=P<.05,**= P<.01, ***=P<.001 Correlation Among Mean Scores Across Reporters of What Dad Does Good First, bivariate correlations were estimated to explore associations between the levels of mothers’ and fathers’ dimensional mean scores for the dimensions in which they thought the father did “good” in the father-child relationship (Table 1). For all eight of the associations tested within this study, significant relationships were observed indicating that both mother and father tended to observe similar levels of father behavior in the narratives – shown along the diagonal of Table 1. The magnitude of the correlations tended to range from medium to high size, suggesting that both mothers and fathers often recognized similar dimensions in which the father did “good” in with his relationship with the child. Table 2: Correlations for Mom and Dad report of what dad need to change/improve Mother- change question “Now think about the things about (husband/partner name) as a (father/stepfather) that you would like to see him change, or you think he needs to work on or improve? Tell me the 2 or 3 things that you would change about (husband/partner name) as a (father/stepfather).” Please Contact Jeffrey T. Cookston, PhD., Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco CA, 94132. Email-cookston@sfsu.edu, Sarah Brunskill Email-h2omelon247@yahoo.com, or Charles Leer Email-charlieleer@gmail.comEmail-cookston@sfsu.eduh2omelon247@yahoo.com Mom Narrative Scores Dad Narrative Scores Emotional QualityResponsivenessInvestmentProvisioningDiscipline Emotional Quality 0.28**0.22-0.02-0.300.03 Responsiveness0.17 0.41***0.11-0.070.20 Investment0.260.150.030.000.34 Provisioning0.07-0.020.29.(a)-0.56 Discipline-0.13-0.09-0.03.(a)0.26 aCannot be computed because at least one of the variables is constant. Mom Narrative Scores Dad Narrative Scores Emotional QualityResponsivenessInvestmentProvisioningDiscipline Emotional Quality 0.87***0.230.22-0.050.14 Responsiveness0.06 0.65***0.24-0.12-0.05 Investment0.170.19 0.78***0.010.15 Provisioning-0.10-0.060.20 0.86***0.23 Discipline0.01-0.060.260.270.96*** aCannot be computed because at least one of the variables is constant. Mom DadOverall MSDM t Emotional Quality1.950.552.040.47 -1.56 Responsiveness2.100.602.050.57 -0.38 Investment2.080.502.110.35 Provisioning3.000.002.000.00 0.67 Discipline2.310.632.170..62 -1.63 MomDadOverall MSDM t Emotional Quality2.490.552.470.48 0.43 Responsiveness2.710.422.600.50 2.5** Investment2.680.482.410.45 5.5*** Provisioning2.790.462.650.46 1.31 Discipline2.510.592.370.69 1.16