Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice about Men as Fathers
Volume 13, Number 2 (2015)
26 pages
Rosalind Edwards, Professor of Sociology
University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
Chamion Caballero, Visiting Senior Fellow
Department for Social Policy
London School of Economics
This article considers how partnered fathers’ involvement may be shaped by their understandings of the salience and impact of their children’s racial belonging where fathers do not share the same race as their (biological) children. We draw on findings from a small-scale study of fathers with a partner from a different racial background living in Britain and New Zealand, to consider their involvement with their mixed or multi-racial children. Bringing up mixed/multi-race children can involve white fathers in thinking about issues that they would not necessarily otherwise have to consider. It could, for example, mean that they supported their children’s access to minority cultural knowledge and challenge racism. Equally, bringing up mixed/multi-race children can involve fathers from racial minorities in thinking about racial considerations in different ways. Notably they may transmit racial pride and cultural history to help their children deal with prejudice from the father’s own minority ethnic group as well as racism from Whites.
Read the entire document (in Microsoft Word format) here.