Abstract
Sociologists Roberta L. Coles (Marquette University) and Charles Green (Hunter College) edit 16 interdisciplinary research studies specifically written for this volume. Their main objective is to “showcase the diversity of African American fatherhood” (p. 11), especially against the demographically dominant single and absent Black father. Organized into six sections addressing married fathers, single resident fathers, social fathering, young fathers, fathers seen through the eyes of their children, and policies effective Black fathers, Coles and Green have clearly addressed Black fatherhood from a breadth of perspectives rarely encountered elsewhere.
One of the first impressions I received while reading this book was the age of the citations. With 615 items included on the chapter-ending reference lists, I was surprised that 47% of the reference items were dated before 2000. If the three policy chapters are excluded, the number of reference items more than 10 years old is almost 52%. Nothing more clearly indicates the need for this collection of new research studies. What is known about Black fathers, especially about committed and present Black fathers is dated and quite likely obsolete.
The 16 studies include 4 quantitative analyses. Three are secondary data analyses. In the first of these, the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth reveals young Black adolescent perceptions of Black fathers (Chapter 2), but fails to provide any comparison with other ethnic or racial groups. In Chapter 6, the National Survey of America’s Families compares Black and White single fathers and found no difference in the use of public assistance. Two waves of the Three-City Study are utilized in Chapter 7 to compare Black and non-Black fathers. Black fathers in all categories were determined to be more transient that non-Black fathers. The final quantitative study (Chapter 13) is an interesting analysis of children’s books available at a southeast urban city library. Only 1.8% of the books (N = 4,334) featured African American families, and only 37 books (0.8%) included an African American father in a primary or secondary role.
Of the remaining 12 chapters, all but 1 is a qualitative study. The exception, Chapter 15, is a literature review of child support policy since welfare reform and its influence on low-income, noncustodial Black fathers. This review of child support policy is critical of the inequities of support determination, the criminalization of nonsupport, and the linkage between driving and occupational licensing and nonsupport.
The 11 chapters reporting the results of qualitative approaches are significantly deficient against contemporary standards for qualitative research. None address researcher bias, measures of triangulation, peer- or member-checking, alternative explanations, or consideration of negative evidence. As such, I believe it is best to consider these chapters as brief reports of pilot studies suggestive of areas that need additional research focus.
The first chapter interviewed 30 happily married Black couples and found that leaving the bachelor mind-set, helping family and community, and fathers changing their behavior for their children were critical to developing a depth of relationship with the wife. In Chapter 3, married Black men raising biracial children (N = 6) dealt primarily with the affirmation of Blackness and overcoming the negative stereotypes of Black men. Black custodial fathers (N = 20) were interviewed in Chapter 4 and compared with what is reported in the literature about White custodial fathers. In this comparison, Black custodial fathers are more likely than White to have children from multiple partners and to include nonbiological children in their household. Black custodial fathers (N = 13) were compared with Black custodial mothers (N = 11) in Chapter 5.
Nonbiological or social fathers are the focus in Chapters 8 and 9 with the former address the role of Black grandfathers as father replacements (N = 30), and the latter comparing biological father (N = 41) and social father (N = 20) attitudes toward safety issues, fighting, and activism while raising children in a violent neighborhood. Young Black fathers are discussed in Chapters 10 and 11 with an emphasis first on the kinship networks for low income, noncustodial fathers (N = 35), and the challenges of forging a Black male identity in the context of stereotypes for National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 athletes who are also fathers (N = 4). Chapter 12 seems a bit out of place in this book as it adopts an attachment theory lens through which to interpret interviews with successfully employed adult daughters (N = 12) of absent nonresident fathers.
In the concluding section of the book addressing social policies, Chapter 14 summarizes a year-long study of the challenges of fathering while on probation or parole (N = 13), and Chapter 16 presents noncustodial Black fathers’ views on marriage and barriers to marriage, that is, child support policy since welfare reform.
Coles and Green are commended for providing a wealth of new ideas related to African American fathers. As these pilot studies suggest, there is clearly more to African American fatherhood than absence. Researchers interested in fatherhood studies should mine this text for questions worthy of further and more rigorous analysis. I believe that many of the themes addressed in this collection are worthy of consideration for all fathers, not just Black fathers, and that our contemporary understanding of the complexity of marriage and family structures will be enriched by thoughtful consideration of the incipient findings contained herein.