Around 1 in 10 children born in the UK are fathered by men under the age of 25, and this book tackles the overlooked views and needs of these young fathers. Challenging negative popular and media discourses, this book showcases future policy and practice directions designed to nurture the potential of these young men and their children.
Around 1 in 10 children born in the UK are fathered by men under the age of 25. These men are often from socially disadvantaged areas and frequently overlooked in both research and practice settings. Using findings from a major Economic and Social Research Council study, supplemented with additional data, the authors focus on the transitions of the young men into early parenthood and their unfolding lives thereafter.
As negative popular and media discourse around young fathers begins to shift, policy makers, practitioners, researchers and students will find future policy and practice directions designed to nurture the potential of these young men and their children.
Bren Neale is Emeritus Professor of Life course and Family Research (University of Leeds, School of Sociology and Social Policy, UK) and a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Bren specialises in research on the dynamics of family life and intergenerational relationships and has published widely in this field.
Bren is a leading expert in qualitative longitudinal (QL) research methodology. From 2007 to 2012 she directed the Economic and Social Research Council-funded Timescapes Initiative (www.timescapes.leeds.ac.uk), as part of which she advanced QL methods and archiving across academia, and in government and non-governmental organisation settings. She continues to provide support and training in this methodology for new and established researchers across the disciplines.
Anna Tarrant is Professor of Sociology at the University of Lincoln, where she is also the Director of the Centre for Innovation in Fatherhood and Family Research. She has been funded to the tune of £1.7 million by the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship scheme to lead Following Young Fathers Further (https://followingyoungfathersfurther.org/), a seven-year qualitative longitudinal and participatory study about the lives and support needs of young fathers. Her research specialisms include men and masculinities; family diversity and dynamics; and methods of qualitative secondary analysis and co-creation.
Anna has built a corpus of publications in these areas including monographs and edited collections. Notable recent contributions include Men and Welfare (2023, Routledge, with Linzi Ladlow and Laura Way), Fathering and Poverty (2021, Policy Press), Men, Families and Poverty: Tracing the Intergenerational Trajectories of Place-Based Hardship (2023, Palgrave Macmillan) and Qualitative Secondary Analysis (2020, Sage) with Kahryn Hughes.
Author/Editor details at time of book publication.