Early Adolescent Girls’ Perceptions of their Relationships with their Fathers:

Abstract

In response to the lack of research on father/daughter relationships in ethnic minority, low-income families, a qualitative, exploratory study was conducted with 20 early adolescent girls to examine their perceptions of relationships with their fathers. The girls predominantly were Latina or African American and came from low-income, two-parent or single-parent households. They participated in one-to-one, semistructured interviews in which they were asked about their relationships with their fathers. The analysis of the interviews revealed four themes: (a) girls had, or expected to have, activity-oriented relationships with their fathers that involved conversations focused on school, sports, or “the world”; (b) girls wanted “more” from their fathers; (c) girls perceived their fathers as “overprotective”; and (d) girls protected their fathers. With the exception of the fourth theme, each theme was detected in more than three-fourths of the girls’ interviews. The findings indicated a need to examine further the standards by which daughters and fathers evaluate their relationships.