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Abstract
The present study examines links between African American fathers parenting practices and the development of childrens problem behavior and school engagement. Specifically, the hypothesized relationships included (1) that African American fathers competence promoting parenting would be associated overtime with a decrease in childrens problem behavior, (2) that African American fathers competence promoting parenting would contribute to an increase in childrens school engagement across time, (3) that African American fathers contribution to their childrens problem behavior would be mediated through childrens school engagement, (4) that fathers religiosity would be associated with African American fathers intimate partner relationships, and (5) that African American fathers competence promoting parenting would be influenced by the quality of their intimate partner relationships. The subsample for the present study, N= 255, was selected from a larger study of 867 families participating in Wave 1 and Wave 2 of the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS). Using structural equation modeling (SEM), the results were consistent with the proposed hypotheses. African American fathers religiosity influenced African American fathers intimate relationship quality. In turn, African American fathers parenting was indirectly influenced by their sense of religiosity through the quality of these relationships. Additionally, fathers parenting yielded protective benefits to childrens problem behaviors and their school engagement.