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Paternal Involvement as Protective Resource of Adolescents’ Resilience: Roles of Male Gender-Role Stereotype and Gender

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Abstract

In this study the association between father involvement and adolescents’ resilience and the roles of male gender-role stereotype and male gender-role identity were examined. Data came from three high school samples of 748 students and was analyzed with structural equation model. Results showed that the data had a satisfactory fit for the model (GFI = .95, AGFI = .94, NFI = .91, CFI = .96, RMSEA = .03), indicating that male gender-role stereotype and male-role identity partially mediated the relationship between paternal involvement and resilience. And multi-group analysis indicated that the pattern of the mediating model of resilience did not differ across gender. But gender difference did exist in the pathway from male gender-role stereotypes to male gender-role identity. This study provided a new way to view father’s scaffolding role of children’s masculinity formation whereby children may increase their social capabilities. The significance and limitations of the results were discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank National Natural Science Foundation of China (31200778), Special Financial Grant from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (201104168) and MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (12YJC190039) for funding this research.

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Zhang, B., Zhao, F., Ju, C. et al. Paternal Involvement as Protective Resource of Adolescents’ Resilience: Roles of Male Gender-Role Stereotype and Gender. J Child Fam Stud 24, 1955–1965 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-014-9995-3

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