8th December 2022
Fathers are more involved in childcare and domestic work compared to previous generations but they still do much less than mothers. In this talk, Helen reflects on the gendered division of care, the barriers to father’s childcare involvement and the implications that this has on their children’s development.
Helen with Dr Nina Teasdale, Postdoctoral Fellow at WiSE
In spite of progress on men’s involvement in childcare, the statistics show that women are still taking on a much bigger share of the work than men. In this programme, Helen provides commentary to Professor Tina Miller on the impact of fathers being involved with their children in the first year of life.
BBC Sounds clip starts at 09:22.
There were three presentations at this event:
Helen Norman – Does father involvement affect children’s educatonal attainment (PIECE project findings).
Adrienne Burgess – Head of Research at the FI – ‘What has lockdown done for father/child relationships?’
Jeszemma Howl – Head of Training at the FI – Can ten minutes matter? How a reading at home programme (Fathers Reading Every Day) impacts on father-child relationships.
You can watch a recording of the FI event and listen to all the presentations here
You can also read more about the FI work with Family Hubs: http://www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/2022/familyhubs/
Chaired by Professor Anna Tarrant, University of Lincoln
Helen presented a paper that discussed how the use of longitudinal data in the PIECE project allowed her to explore individual trajectories and levels of change in relation to fathers’ involvement, and the impact this has on children’s educational achievements through primary school.
In this presentation, she reflected on the first stage of data analysis that focused on exploring the relationship between fathers’ childcare involvement and educational attainment at one time point, when children are age five. She then reflected on the second stage of analysis, which introduced longitudinal data to account for fathers’ pre-school involvement. This second stage added further nuance and insight to the findings, which show that paternal involvement does has a unique and important effect on attainment at school. She also reflected on some of the qualitative work for the project, which involved bringing in the voices of fathers to enhance understandings of the long-term relationship between paternal care and attainment at school.
She was also joined by Professor Tina Miller and Dr Georgia Phillip.
The Timescapes 10 Festival is a major celebration of advances in qualitative longitudinal methods through a mixture of international symposia, panel sessions, video provocations, sandpits, and demonstrator events. Jointly run through the Timescapes Archive and the National Centre for Research Methods, the Timescapes 10 Festival celebrates ten years since the conclusion of the original Timescapes programme of research. See here for more details about Timescapes 10.
Abstract: In this talk, Helen Norman introduces the PIECE project, which explores whether, and in what ways, fathers’ engagement in structured activities at home (like playing, reading, drawing, painting, and doing musical activities), as well as the time fathers spend with their children more generally, influences their children’s educational attainment at primary school. Through the analysis of a large-scale national survey, results show that fathers do have a unique and positive impact on their children’s academic achievements in the early stages of school. However, there continue to be barriers to fathers’ home and school engagement, which suggests that more needs to be done to support dads to engage because of the benefits this has on early attainment at school.
Helen introduced the PIECE project and latest findings to colleagues at the LUBS Annual Research Conference in Leeds.
Presentation slides available here
Helen and Rose presented further findings from the statistical analysis that explored how fathers and mothers childcare involvement affects educational attainment in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile at age five at three conferences:
Work and Family Researcher Network 6th Biennial Conference, 23-25 June 2022 – New York Hilton Midtown, New York City
Social Policy Association conference, 6-8 July 2022, Swansea University
You can download a PDF of the conference slides below:
Conference presentation – 21st April 2022
Helen and Rose presented the initial findings from their analysis exploring the association between paternal and maternal involvement, and attainment in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile at age five.
For further details about the conference, see here
Conference presentation – 2nd September 2021
Helen presented a paper that shows how our measures of paternal childcare engagement were derived using survey data from the Millennium Cohort Study. We use these measures to explore what influences paternal engagement from nine months to eleven years post-birth. The presentation reflects on some of the first findings from this analysis.
We will use these measures in our forthcoming analysis to explore how they might affect children’s educational outcomes.
You can download the presentation slides here.
Helen was interviewed by Kate Bottley on BBC Sunday Morning live on 20th June 2021 (Father’s Day) about how fathers’ roles had changed over the last fifty years.
Watch the clip here:
"Involved fatherhood is a strategy for gender equality" @HelenNorman23 @PIECEstudy
Great to be part of this for #InternationalWomansDay2023
@fatherhoodinst https://twitter.com/fatherhoodinst/status/1633404505466216451
Today, International Women’s Day 2023, we’re celebrating prominent UK women who are committed to leading calls for involved fatherhood as an essential contribution to gender equality. We asked them why they do this important work.
Here's what they said... (a thread)
Working fathers are spending more time per day looking after their children. In this article @paul_hodkinson and @_rachel_brooks explore why this matters
COVID may have enhanced many dads' involvement in parenting – our research shows why caregiving roles can last. Great piece by @paul_hodkinson & @_rachel_brooks, citing our recent data reports https://theconversation.com/covid-may-have-enhanced-many-dads-involvement-in-parenting-our-research-shows-why-caregiving-roles-can-last-197487
💡Fascinating to hear & discuss @PIECEstudy’s important findings on fathers’ childcare involvement & children’s attainment at primary school - lots to build on!
@FenlandPP @ParentpowerSL @BrilliantClub @learnwparents @fatherhoodinst @EduDetective https://twitter.com/PIECEstudy/status/1613261687120863260
Fantastic to share our findings highlighting the importance of father engagement in children's care & learning @ the brilliant @learnwparents Parental Engagement Forum.
Insightful discussions w. @Parentkind @PeepleCentre @ukEdge @DattaJon @SHSorguk @CForLearning & many others!
