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Fathers and Longitudinal Research Panel – Timescapes 10 Festival, 14 September 2022 (online)

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.