Limb 1

Aurora Ione Limb

Professor Trotter

English 1200

March 18th 2019

Annotated Bibliography

Mabuza, N., Thwala, SK., and Okeke CIO. “Single Parenting and its Effects on the

Psychosocial Development of Children in Swaziland.” Mediterranean Journal of Social

Sciences. Vol 5. No 23. November 2014. Accessed March 17 2019. This study examines

a group of 397 children in Swaziland that grow up in homes with a single parent or

provider, and looks to examine how they develop emotionally, cognitively, and socially.

Through a series of interviews with these children, the researchers conclude that

growing up in single-parent/provider homes does cause the children academic,

economic, and psychological distress.

This article is published by a group of professors from the University of Swaziland and

University of Fort Hare in the Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences and is

relatively recent in comparison to some of the studies that I’ve found, which I believe

adds credibility to its results. I personally enjoyed that it delves into some of the social

and emotional problems the children face as a result of not having one or either parents

around, such as their relationships with their peers, or the responsibilities they have to

adopt as a result of not having that extra support. Whilst the results are not strictly

statistics, I believe this will add a deeper personal level of analysis on child
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psychological and social well being. I believe I can also utilize this to segway into some

of the less negative results of not having both parents in the home, and discuss personal

experience with fatherlessness.

Whitney, Stephen, Prewett, Sara, Wang, Ze, and Chen, Haiqin. “Father’s Importance in

Adolescents’ Academic Achievement.” International Journal of Child, Youth and

Family Studies. 8 (3-4): 101-126. 2017. Accessed March 17 2019. This is a relatively

large study of 6,594 students from 137 schools ranging from 7th to 12th grade. It looks

to analyze how different father structures affect overall GPA in students. It breaks down

the different kinds of fathers, which I’d not seen in other studies, so provides some new

insight to the question of “Does it need to be a biological father in the home?” And it

also breaks down levels of parenting, by analyzing how often the fathers participate in

school functions, or time at home with their children. It was done over the course of

eight years, so large pool of data to pull from.

Essentially it concludes that residency of the father, regardless of biological or

nonbiological, and level of parenting are what positively contribute to children’s overall

academic success. I found this interesting and useful because in another study on early

childhood development, it seems to conclude that neither the presence of the father or

the mother increase early child academic success. However, this study suggest that it

does, just over a prolonged period of time. I feel that’s an important element to include

in my paper.

McBride, Brent. “The Differential Impact of Early Father and Mother Involvement on Later
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Student Achievement.” A. Dyer, Justin W. Liu, Ying. Brown, Geoffrey L. Hong,

Sungjin. J Edu Psychol. 2009 May; 101 (2): 498-508. Accessed March 17 2019. This

study focuses on 390 children ages 2-5 and looks to analyze paternal and maternal

involvement academically versus later academic success. The study concludes that

neither parental or maternal involvement were not directly linked to later academic

outcomes, later father involvement was correlated with negative academic outcomes for

children, whereas mother involvement was correlated with positive academic outcomes.

The researchers believe this to be a result of the different roles each parent plays, seeing

as fathers take on more of the disciplinary role.

McBride is a professor at University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. This study was

published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, and is relatively recent. I

personally enjoyed that in the introduction to the study, it points out that there hasn’t

been much research on how different parental roles affect children and that it is a new

field of research, so conclusions are limited. I’m going to use it in conjunction with the

Whitney study above to illustrate father involvement on academic success.

Opondo, Charles, Redshaw, Maggie, Savage-McGlynn, Emily, Quigley, Maria A. “Father

Involvement in early child-rearing and behavioral outcomes in their pre-adolescent

children; evidence from the ALSPAC UK birth cohort.” Policy Research Unit in

Maternal Health and Care, National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Nuffield Department

of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford UK. November 22 2016. Accessed

March 17 2019. This study analyzed a group of 6000+ children and their fathers ages

9-11 in southwest England. It analyzed how fathers spend time with their children, the
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level of comfort they had in their role as a father, how much they valued it as a part of

their life, and overall success of the child throughout the course of 3 years. The study

concluded that it was not the time spent with the children that mattered, but the level of

comfort and how the fathers valued their role that positively impacted academic success

in children.

I enjoyed, again, that in the introduction to the study that the researchers pointed out

this is a new area of study for psychologist and that there is very limited proper analysis

of fathers and their role in children’s lives. However, I do feel this conclusion adds

something to the conversation about whether or not it necessarily needs to be a

biological father in the home and the overarching social conversation on what it means

to be a father.

Paul, Pamela. “Are Fathers Necessary? A parental contribution may not be as essential as we

think.” The Atlantic. 2010. Accessed March 17 2019. In this Atlantic article, Paul argues

that the public notion of necessity of fathers is arbitrary and not founded statistically.

It’s not a credible source, seeing as she cites absolutely none of her statements and is

very biased, leaning more towards a very leftist worldview with no statistical backing.

However, it does provide an alternative worldview that does appear in a lot of

conversations concerning parenting and the issue of fatherlessness.

Rosenburg, Jeffrey, and Wilcox, W. Bradford. “The Importance of Fathers in the Healthy

Development of Children.” U.S Department of Health and Human Services,

Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and

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Families, Children’s Bureau, Office of Child Abuse and Neglect. 2006. Accessed March

17 2019. This segment if provided by the U.S Department of Health and Human

Services, and serves as a broad overview/introduction to the basic issue of

fatherlessness, including a broad overview of how it affects children's behavior, its

impact on academic success, on psychological and social well being and some statistics

on maltreatment in homes from both parents. It does seem to be more leaning towards a

nuclear family, but has statistics to back up that conclusion. It’s an overview, so it

doesn’t go into great depth into any specific conclusions. Credible, because it’s a

booklet that was given to all government social workers during the Bush administration.

David Blankenhorn. Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem. Basic

Books. 1995.This entire book is about the issue of the rising rate of fatherlessness in

America. It goes through the history of the issue, what it means to be a father, the role

they play socially and personally with children. David Blankenhorn is a graduate of

Harvard, and the book is highly esteemed academically by his peers. It’s again, very

much so advocating for a nuclear family, and the research, while abundant, has not been

renewed since the 1990’s. However, the author goes into great depth both historically

and statistically to backup all of his claims and points, and reads very credibly.

This book will be the basis of my paper, simply because of how well researched and

through it is.