Next we turn to the major focus of our analysis, namely evaluation of the process models. Results supported our hypothesis that father acceptance, monitoring, consistent discipline, and interactions with the adolescent would be positively associated with positive adolescent adjustment, while father rejection would be negatively associated with positive adolescent adjustment. These findings were found across both MA and EA step and intact families while controlling for SES, adolescent gender, marital quality, and mothers’ parenting behaviors, suggesting that fathering is associated with adolescent adjustment regardless of family type in both ethnic groups. In addition, we used multiple reporters (mother, father, and adolescent reports) of fathering – a methodological feature that not only increases confidence in our findings but avoids the colinearity problems characteristic of many prior studies of the links between father involvement and adolescent outcomes. These results are also consistent with previous research (Burns & Dunlop, 1998; Flouri & Buchanan, 2002; Toth & Xu, 1999) and support our theoretical position that it is not only father involvement but also the parenting practices employed by the father that influence child adjustment.
