Father-Absence Effects in Families of Different Sibling Compositions

Does living with a female head-of-household affect the arithmetic achievement of black fourth-grade pupils?

“…There were significant differences in mean arithmetic scores favoring those living with male-heads-of-households over those living with female-heads-of-households. This supports previous studies (Blanchard & Biller, 1971;Deutsch & Brown, 1964;Santrock, 1972;Sutton-Smith, et al, 1968).…”

“…Research has indicated that the father-absent child performs more poorly in school than the father-present child. Sutton-Smith, Rosenberg, and Landy (1968) examined the father absence effects in families of different sibling compositions upon the college entrance scores on the ACE. They concluded that "father absence Requests for reprints should be sent to Richard K. Jant,z, Dept.…”

Fathers: Forgotten Contributors to Child Development

“…Much of the evidence we do have on the importance of fathers is derived, not from studies of the interaction of fathers and their offspring, but from the extensive literature on the deleterious effects of father absence (reviewed by Biller 1970Biller , 1971 which points to abnormal development in varied areasincluding sex-role adoption, particularly among boys (Bach, 1946, Biller, 1971bHetherington, 1966;Lynn andSawrey, 1959: Mischel, 1970;Sears et al, 1946), the inhibition of aggression (Bach 1946;Feshbach, 1970: Hetherington, 1966, cognitive styles (Carlsmith, 1964) and academic performance (Bronfenbrenner, 1967;Deutsch, 1960;Deutsch and Brown, 1964;Blanchard and Biller, 1971;Sutton-Smith et al, 1968), moral development (Hoffman, 1970(Hoffman, , 1971, an inability to delay gratification (Mischel, 1958(Mischel, , 1961, as well as an elevated probability of subsequent psychopathology (Crumley and Blumenthal, 1973) and delinquency (Andry, 1960;Burton and Whiting, 1961;Pettigrew, 1964). There is some evidence that father absence is most damaging when the children are younger (Mischel, 1970) which argues for the importance of the father in these years.…”

Hereditary and Environmental Components of Quantitative Reasoning

“…Ordinal position also interacts with father absence so that, while father absence acts as a depressant upon ACE scores in general, for Q scores there is less effect upon sons with brothers than upon sons without; on the other hand, Q scores of daughters with a younger brother appear to be more depressed than those of daughters without (Sutton-Smith, Rosenberg, & Landy, 1968).…”