Please note that this Research Initiative is no longer active.
Fathers, Parenting, and Families
Our vision
The vision for the Fathers, Parenting, and Families Initiative, which is supported by an endowment from John & Doris Norton, is a collaboration of researchers designed to advance knowledge around research questions in the domain of fathers, parenting, and families.
The approach of this initiative is to ask fundamental questions about:
- The social, cultural, and biological mechanisms that shape family life.
- How relationships with fathers may be uniquely related to children's development and how father roles and effects may be shaped by, and in turn shape, mother, child, and family characteristics.
- Mountain gorillas' family structure and parenting traits.
Our Goal
The ultimate goal is to launch an initiative where the scholarly foundation will be the development of systematic, collaborative research capacity in fathers, parenting, and families, which will enable the launch and support of signature studies that will achieve growing importance over time. Complementing and extending this scholarly base will be an extension of classroom education and outreach efforts relating to fathers, parenting, and families.