23. Rita Chawla-Duggan, 2006; Exploring the role of father development workers in supporting early years learning

CLICK HERE FOR RESEARCH: Rita Chawla-Duggan, of the Department of Education,University of Bath, UK, writes this qualitative paper on father development workers (FDW), a program run by SureStrart in the UK, to guide and encourage young fathers to become more involved with their children. 

The program was set up in recognition of children having greater life chances when closely involved with their fathers. Rita Duggan's first paragraph in the introduction reads as follows:

"There exists a wealth of evidence from the USA (Yogman et al., 1995; Parke, 1996; Lamb, 1997; Marsiglio et al., 2000), and more recently in England (DfES, 2004; Goldman, 2004) that demonstrates that fathers have an important role to play in children’s development. Positive father involvement in their children’s learning is associated with better educational, social and emotional outcomes for children (DfES, 2004; Goldman, 2004). Children with involved, loving fathers do better in school (Nord et al., 1997), have healthy self-esteem (Radin, 1994), exhibit empathy, pro-social behaviour with peers (Snarey, 1993; Mosley & Thompson, 1995), and avoid high-risk behaviours compared to children who have uninvolved fathers (Horn & Sylvester, 2002). In terms of parent–child relationships, a loving and nurturing father is as important for social and academic success as having a loving and nurturing mother (Rohner & Veneziano, 2001). Evidence suggests that fathers who set appropriate limits and allowed healthy independence tended to rear sons with high academic achievement (Feldman & Wentzel, 1990). Additionally, even when fathers have limited schooling, their involvement in children’s school lives has a powerful impact on educational attainment (Gadsden & Ray, 2003). With regard to boys, it has been maintained that their masculinity, and the differing ways it is taken up and reproduced in their lives, impacts upon their dispositions towards education and schooling and this can be traced into the early years (Connolly, 2004). Clearly then, fathers have an important role to play in the process of developing their sons’ identities as learners from an early age...."