The Influence of Black African American Fathers’ Parenting Styles on Young Adult Children’s Attachment Styles: the Roles of Gender and Fathers’ Residence
type: CreativeWork
description: Parenting Black African American (BAA) fathers in the United States are frequently mischaracterized as absent or uninvolved, reinforcing deficit-based narratives rooted in historical and systemic racism. Such portrayals obscure the meaningful and sustained roles many BAA fathers play in their families and fail to account for the cultural, structural, and contextual conditions that shape paternal involvement and parenting practices. Although a growing body of research has documented the importance of father involvement for child development, comparatively limited empirical attention has been given to how BAA fathers’ parenting styles influence their children’s attachment—particularly as a function of fathers’ co-residency histories. This gap in the literature underscores the need for culturally specific research that examines the nuanced dynamics of BAA father–child relationships and critically challenges dominant, Eurocentric assumptions embedded in parenting and attachment scholarship. Method This correlational study examined the associations between BAA young adults’ attachment styles and their perceptions of their fathers’ parenting styles, with particular attention to the contextual role of fathers’ living arrangements. Data were collected via SurveyMonkey from a sample of 214 BAA young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. Participants completed the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Adult Attachment Scale (AAS), which served as the primary instruments for assessing perceived paternal parenting styles and attachment orientations, respectively. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to examine whether perceived paternal parenting styles and attachment dimensions differed based on fathers’ residential status (living with or away from their children) and participant gender. The analysis was intended to evaluate group-level mean differences across the dependent variables rather than to assess predictive or causal relationship…
abstract: Parenting Black African American (BAA) fathers in the United States are frequently mischaracterized as absent or uninvolved, reinforcing deficit-based narratives rooted in historical and systemic racism. Such portrayals obscure the meaningful and sustained roles many BAA fathers play in their families and fail to account for the cultural, structural, and contextual conditions that shape paternal involvement and parenting practices. Although a growing body of research has documented the importance of father involvement for child development, comparatively limited empirical attention has been given to how BAA fathers’ parenting styles influence their children’s attachment—particularly as a function of fathers’ co-residency histories. This gap in the literature underscores the need for culturally specific research that examines the nuanced dynamics of BAA father–child relationships and critically challenges dominant, Eurocentric assumptions embedded in parenting and attachment scholarship. Method This correlational study examined the associations between BAA young adults’ attachment styles and their perceptions of their fathers’ parenting styles, with particular attention to the contextual role of fathers’ living arrangements. Data were collected via SurveyMonkey from a sample of 214 BAA young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. Participants completed the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Adult Attachment Scale (AAS), which served as the primary instruments for assessing perceived paternal parenting styles and attachment orientations, respectively. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to examine whether perceived paternal parenting styles and attachment dimensions differed based on fathers’ residential status (living with or away from their children) and participant gender. The analysis was intended to evaluate group-level mean differences across the dependent variables rather than to assess predictive or causal relationship…
author: Thompson, Robert Baptiste
keywords: Parenting, African American Fathers, Gender, Young Adult Children, Counseling, Family, Life Course, and Society
date published: 2026-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:54:19Z
provider: Andrews University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Andrews University