Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Studite Fathers'

The purpose of this project was to create a program, identify a funding source, and write a grant to fund a one-week father and gay son retreat. A detailed literature review was conducted to analyze the background and prevalence of the problem as well as past solutions attempted to resolve the problem.

Gay men continue to commit suicide, have substance use disorders, and suffer from bullying and hate crimes at rates that are disproportionate to the general population. This program seeks to help improve the relationships between gay men and their fathers. The goal of the proposed program is to improve the mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing of gay males ages 14-24 years old by providing a week-long retreat consisting of workshops, panels, outdoor activities, and support groups. The program will target cities throughout Los Angeles County. The potential funding source was the Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride (LBLGP), which has a history of supporting similar programs.

Actual submission and/or funding of this grant was not a requirement for successful completion of this project.

In recent decades, there has been a significant rise in the prominence and visibility of gay-identified men choosing to become fathers. The rise in planned gay fatherhood may be partially due to young gay men’s radically evolving views of fatherhood (Berkowitz, 2011a). The current research is a phenomenological investigation in to the lived experience of gay fathers and community. Research questions include: How do gay men re-orient to evolving sources of social support over the transition to parenthood? How does the experience and quality of social support affect the process of becoming a father for gay men? Do gay fathers experience a sense of inclusion or exclusion in various social settings? How do gay fathers experience social milieus differently than before having children? Data collection consisted of interviews with 12 gay identified cisgender men who became fathers in the context of a previously established gay or queer identities. Interviews were in-depth and semistructured. While some fathers have described the process of becoming a parent as a second coming out process that allows a casting off of internalized oppression, others have described feeling alienated from previous social networks. Participants did not describe a distancing from a gay community, nor did a majority appear to feel embedded in a gay community describing diverse group of friends before and after having children. Participants experienced varying levels of family support in which future parenting identity became paramount to maintaining connections and approval from family members. Several fathers described interactions, particularly in public, that fall under the category of microaggression laden with stereotype threat. Such intrusions were disorienting and threatened to undermine an emerging sense of competence at critical stages of establishing a new fatherhood identity. Suggestions for further research and implications for therapeutic interactions are considered.

The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore how self-identified academically successful students perceived their nonresident African American fathers’ involvement in their education and to determine ways to encourage paternal participation in schools. Joyce Epstein’s Six Types of Parental Involvement Typology was used as assess how the nonresident African American fathers were involved in their children’s education. The research design used for this study was a basic interpretive qualitative approach. Participants in this study were students who attend or have previously graduated from a four-year university or college. There were 25 participants in the study. The students were 18–23 years of age. The data collection method for the study was in the form of a 60-minute in-depth interview with each participant. Semistructured interview questions were used to collect information for the study.

Data obtained from the interviews revealed eight themes: (a) encouragement, (b) breaking the cycle, (c) sports, (d) help with schoolwork, (e) offering advice, (f) financial assistance, (g) phone calls, and (h) helping others with similar struggles. The participants revealed that their fathers were not involved directly in their schools, as measured according to Epstein’s six types of parent involvement, but rather the fathers were involved in indirect ways in accordance to Dewey’s view on education.

Two of the themes were more participant based: (a) the need to break the cycle of paternal absence, so that their children would not grow up without knowing their fathers; and (b) the desire to be of some support and to offer assistance to others going through the same struggle of not having their fathers in their lives.

The findings revealed that the involvement of the nonresident African American fathers in this study did not conform to Epstein’s parental involvement model, but rather their involvement was indirectly involved in their children’s education. Physical absence of the father does not mean that he is not important, but rather that various factors may hinder his involvement with his children. Schools should make a conscious effort to foster relationships between fathers and their children. Nonresident African American fathers can make a difference.

LGBT-headed families are experiencing a changing social environment and public school environments cannot be assumed to change in synchronicity with educational policies and laws. Schools are heteronormative spaces that create an identity conflict for gay fathers because their very existence conflicts the norm that’s prevalent in that space. Two school stakeholder groups (school counselors and gay fathers) were investigated through a qualitative complementary case study. Intersectionality and social movement theory are theoretical lenses that can help identify the overlaps of salient roles and responsibilities that each group utilize to uncover understanding of identity and advocacy stances through a family, school and community partnership context.

The aim of this study is to look into the correctional system’s work with parent ship of incarcerated mothers and fathers from a gender perspective. It is a qualitative study and two interviews have been done with employees from a prison for women and one interview from a prison for men. Two interviews have been done with two former incarcerated parents, one mother and one father. One interview has also been done with an organization which gives children with incarcerated parents support and an opportunity to meet other children in the same situation. They also give incarcerated parents support in the contact with their children.

The results of the study imply that the correctional system has the same theoretical approach when working with incarcerated mothers and fathers. It is obvious that when it comes to attitudes and presumptions about parent ship, there are differences based on a gender perspective. This affects the practical work with parent ship within the correctional system. The results show that gender is always present in the discussion about parent ship within the correctional system even though the framework tells us different. This makes it even more important to be aware about how gender makes us look at parent ship depending on sex. Not least in the correctional system.        

The purpose of this study was to partner with the community to learn and conceptualize how to integrate a spiritual and leadership development program in order to promote social and family responsibility in African American and Latino at-risk males who have become single fathers and to become responsive to the Word of God in their lives.

Offering the first sustained critical analysis of the cultural interaction between melodramas of the nurturing fatherhood and the emergent ideology of neoliberalism, my dissertation explores the representation of white middle-class fathers in late-twentieth-century American literature and movies.

The nurturing father is a poster child of neoliberalism: he is represented as an entrepreneur who individually manages his time and skills; taking care of kids is represented not as a tiresome drudgery but as a part of a white middle-class father’s self-investment which enhances his (children’s) human capital. The nurturing father’s pain and suffering are instrumental in understanding the cultural interaction between neoliberalism and melodrama. Echoing the anxiety that special rights given to groups are violating white middle-class men’s rights as individuals, the melodrama of the nurturing father implicitly contests the law’s protection of mothers as a gendered group and its intervention into private issues. Furthermore, the nurturing father is almost always represented as white middle-class with African American and/or working-class deadbeat fathers serving as counterpoints. By critically examining the significance of the freedom and self-government the white middle-class nurturing father embodies, this dissertation discusses how the melodrama of the nurturing father evokes and eases anxiety about a fatherless society.

While traditionally the American family’s morality was predicated on the mother’s sentimental and religious power to secure home as the place of comfort, an oasis from the ravages of capitalism, morality and innocence in the age of neoliberalism are marked by the father’s choice to nurture human capital and become an independent subject in the market economy. Untangling the intertwined relationship between home and the world, this dissertation analyzes the significance of nurturing fatherhood as a lifestyle choice and traces the contested negotiation between production and reproduction in the age of neoliberalism.

This year-long research investigated fathers' involvement in 1 public elementary school in southern California that served an ethnic diverse and lower socioeconomic population. This case applied Epstein's 6 typologies to analyze the perceptions of 112 fathers and 132 mothers utilizing a 35-item validated questionnaire, followed by long interviews of fathers, school administrators, and teachers in addition to researcher's field notes.

Compared to prior studies, findings revealed that fathers and mothers reported that fathers' involvement in parenting and home learning was high. Responding to "all the time" and "sometimes," 91% of the fathers indicated they attended extracurricular activities; 87% participated in PTA activities; 86% attended parent-teacher conferences; 82% monitored or assisted with homework; 82% offered study space; 81% regularly purchased supplies; 75% provided computer and technology equipment; and 80% celebrated academic achievement. Utilizing 2 chi-square analyses to survey data, these findings applied to fathers who were employed (71%) or unemployed (29%) as well as to higher-educated fathers (community college degree and above) and fathers with a high school diploma or less (p > .05).

Applying a chi-square analysis to survey data, fathers' and mothers' perceptions were similar (p > .05) except volunteering, fathers indicating higher involvement. However, 88 to 100% fathers responded to "not at all" or "a few times" on the items in this typology, a low level of involvement. All groups of respondents reported fathers' low involvement in school decision-making and community collaboration activities.

Regarding communication, fathers indicated that they desired direct communication from the school such as e-mail blasts, text messages, and focused notices related to their child. Since fathers indicated that 32.0% were divorced or separated and almost half of the participating mothers were single, targeted communication to fathers as well mothers is necessary to encourage father involvement. School personnel reported communication is primarily sent to one set of parents as accurate 2-parent information is difficult.

The study provides recommendations to stimulate father engagement, such as staff should connect with fathers during child pick-up and after-school activities. Also, staff should create a father-friendly school environment and offer focused, task-oriented opportunities to involve fathers as well as social activities that attract mothers.

Keywords: father involvement, parent-school communication, family involvement, parenting.

The purpose of this research was to gain an understanding of the lived experience of the participants in a workshop entitled: "The Father Hunger Workshop: The Union of the Son of Promise with the Father of Achievement." This psychoeducational workshop was designed by psychologist Donald Kilhefner to assist gay men in their late 20s through 30s, who feel that they are having difficulty maturing into adulthood. The research question for this study was "What is the lived experience of participating in the Father Hunger Workshop?" This question issues from a phenomenological orientation, which focuses on the lived experience of the participant. Interviews were conducted, and the 4 most descriptive of these were transcribed and then analyzed using Giorgi's (2009) descriptive phenomenology.

The following themes, among others, were identified and then expanded upon in relation to relevant literature: The participants enjoyed the opportunity to get to know gay men in a different context; they felt a sense of safety in the group that helped them to participate more fully; they found open communication in a group setting to be new and challenging; being held accountable by the group was experienced as both difficult and supportive; they gained insight through their reactions to other group members; they felt resistance, at times, to attending sessions; they appreciated the chance to work with a gay elder; they gained new meaning and purpose with regard to their gay identity; and they came to experience compassion and forgiveness for their fathers.

Findings from this in-depth exploration of the dynamics of a psychoeducational gay men's workshop may help other researchers and clinicians in conceptualizing and implementing the curative or helpful aspects of group work with gay men. This study offers information relevant to the specific needs of gay men at a developmental crossroads in their lives and offers members of both the gay community and mainstream society an understanding of the specific challenges faced by gay men who are struggling with the process of maturation.