What influences fathers' engagement in children’s education and care?

Start date: 1 June 2024
End date: 28 February 2025
Principal investigator: Dr Helen Norman
Postgraduate researchers: Ana Maria Nicoriciu, University of Manchester
Project advisories: Dr Jeremy Davies, the Fatherhood Institute, and Frank Young, Parentkind

Description

This project builds on the Paternal Involvement and its Effects on Children’s Education (PIECE) study (2021-23) led by the University of Leeds in collaboration with the University of Manchester and the Fatherhood Institute. Using 2005/6 data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study, the PIECE study found an important relationship between fathers’ childcare engagement and children’s educational attainment in primary school (Norman and Davies 2023). Despite this, fathers were significantly less likely to engage with their child’s education and school compared to mothers, suggesting there might be certain barriers to paternal education and school engagement (Norman, Smith and Davies 2023).

In this follow-on project, we explore what influences fathers’ engagement in their children’s education for a cohort of children living in the UK in 2023. Drawing on Parentkind’s 2023 National Parent Survey (NPS), we explore fathers’ (and mothers’) attitudes, perceptions, and practices of engagement in their child’s education and with their child’s school. Specifically, the analysis will explore whether paternal (and maternal) attitudes, perceptions and practices are shaped by, for example, social grade, work status and geographical location so that we can establish which fathers are more likely to engage with schools, and what are the key barriers to their school engagement.

The 2023 NPS provides us with a unique opportunity to explore data for a more recent cohort of parents and children, helping us to identify which barriers are most important for fathers in the UK today. This will enhance our PIECE study policy and organisational recommendations on how to address some of those barriers and better support fathers’ childcare and school engagement.

This project is funded by Leeds University Business School’s Small Research Grant.

Publications and outputs

PIECE study report, Norman, H., and Davies, J. 2023.
‘How important is early paternal engagement? Deriving longitudinal measures of fathers’ childcare engagement and exploring structural relationships with prior engagement and employment hours’. Journal of Family Issues, Norman H, Elliot M, Vanchugova D. 2023.

Media coverage and blog posts

‘Dads and school involvement: could do better?’, Parentkind blog, Norman, H., Zhuang, W., and Davies, J.
'Supporting fathers to get more involved at school', PIECE blog, Norman, H., Smith, R., and Davies, J.
'Fathers have ‘unique effect’ on children’s educational outcomes, study finds', The Guardian, 2023