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• Homeless Fathers. What they brought – What they received, and what they passed on

  78-106

  Boróka Fehér

  Lea Lengyel

  Views:

  12

  This article examines the paternal identity of homeless men and the ways in which their relationships with their children are manifested in their life trajectories, thereby extending previous analyses on homeless mothers. Although the literature on homelessness predominantly portrays men, their fatherhood and parental roles remain largely underexplored. Drawing on qualitative life-history interviews with fifty homeless fathers, the study investigates key dimensions including childhood experiences, demographic and educational background, employment history, health status, exposure to and perpetration of violence, and processes of self-identification. The findings are systematically compared with earlier research on homeless mothers to illuminate gendered similarities and divergences in the formation and significance of parental identity. By situating fatherhood within the broader context of homelessness, this study advances a more nuanced understanding of parental roles among homeless populations and offers empirically grounded insights to inform social work practice and the development of targeted support interventions for homeless parents.

• Types of fathers’ home-based and school-based involvement based on an interview study

  119-139

  Zsolt Csák

  Views:

  308

  In this study, we examine fathers’ home-based and school-based involvement to assist the development and achievement of their children. The international literature suggests that fathers are less involved than mothers, and the form of their involvement is also different. However, their home-based and school-based involvement has been shown to have similar positive effects on children’s educational outcomes. We examine the forms of parental involvement based on the typology created by Epstein and Sanders. In our empirical work, we conducted 14 semi-structured interviews with fathers with young children and aimed to delineate father types based on the forms of involvement by conducting a classification of the interviews. Our results show that the first group of fathers are only involved at home; they do not participate in school-related events with their child but report being actively involved in their child’s education and school-related activities at home. Fathers in the second group, on the other hand, are involved not only at home but also in school life. The third type is made up of divorced fathers who, with one exception, are involved at school and at home, which is consistent with the findings in the literature on single fathers with children. In this study, we also attempt to answer the question of how to increase fathers’ school-based involvement. According to the interviewees’ answers, their activity could be encouraged through support from their wife, greater self-confidence, and events organised by schools which are more suited to fathers (sports events, cooking together).