In this article, we use data on biological fathers (n = 597) and mothers (N = 1,550) from 12 sites of the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHS study) to examine the type and frequency of father involvement. We use a three-part model of father involvement to examine whether fathers participating in the EHS study are accessible to, engaged with, and show responsibility for their two-year-old children. We also examine patterns of reported father involvement by relationship status and residency. We find that more than 80% of all two-year-old children in the EHS study have accessible biological fathers, with the majority of nonresident boyfriends and nonresident friends and more than a 5

This study examines and compares prominent characteristics of maternal responsiveness to infant activity during home-based naturalistic interactions of mother-infant dyads in New York City, Paris, and Tokyo. Both culture-general and culture-specific patterns of responsiveness emerged. For example, in all 3 locales infants behaved similarly, mothers also behaved similarly with respect to a hierarchy of response types, and mothers and infants manifest both specificity and mutual appropriateness in their interactions: Mothers responded to infants' exploration of the environment with encouragement to the environment, to infants' vocalizing nondistress with imitation, and to infants' vocalizing distress with nurturance. Differences in maternal responsiveness among cultures occurred to infant looking rather than to infant vocalizing and in mothers' emphasizing dyadic versus extradyadic loci of interaction. Universals of maternal responsiveness, potential sources of cultural variation, and implications of similarities and differences in responsiveness for child development in different cultural contexts are discussed.

This study examines and compares prominent characteristics of maternal responsiveness to infant activity during home-based naturalistic interactions of mother-infant dyads in New York City, Paris, and Tokyo. Both culture-general and culture-specific patterns of responsiveness emerged. For example, in all 3 locales infants behaved similarly, mothers also behaved similarly with respect to a hierarchy of response types, and mothers and infants manifest both specificity and mutual appropriateness in their interactions: Mothers responded to infants' exploration of the environment with encouragement to the environment, to infants' vocalizing nondistress with imitation, and to infants' vocalizing distress with nurturance. Differences in maternal responsiveness among cultures occurred to infant looking rather than to infant vocalizing and in mothers' emphasizing dyadic versus extradyadic loci of interaction. Universals of maternal responsiveness, potential sources of cultural variation, and implications of similarities and differences in responsiveness for child development in different cultural contexts are discussed.

No abstract

Maternal parenting behaviors during a mother-infant play interaction were examined in a sample of 160 low-income mothers and their 15-month-old infants. Maternal responsive/didactic, intrusive, and negative behaviors were coded from videotapes and examined in relation to mothers' age, marital status, stressful life events, and depressive symptoms, and infants' cognitive scores at 15 and 25 months. Younger maternal age and increases in stressful life events were associated with increases in mothers' negative behaviors whereas being married was positively associated with mothers' responsive/didactic behaviors and inversely associated with their negative and intrusive behaviors. Mothers' depressive symptoms were inversely associated with both responsive/didactic and intrusive behaviors and predicted lower cognitive scores in infants at 15 months, but not 25 months. Maternal responsive/didactic behaviors predicted infant cognitive scores at both ages after controlling for maternal characteristics and other parenting behaviors. Intrusiveness moderated associations between both responsive/didactic and negative parenting behaviors and infant 25-month cognition. Maternal age, marital status, psychological resources, and contextual sources of stress play a central role in the quality of parenting among low-income mothers, and positive mother-infant interactions are strong predictors of infants' early cognitive status. ). Theoretical and empirical work on the "determinants" of parenting indicate that parents' psychological functioning, characteristics of children, and contextual sources of stress and support are main areas of influence (Belsky, 1984). Parenting, however, is not a unidimensional construct but rather is made up of multiple behaviors, including positive and negative affect (