Honoring foundational Black psychologists' contributions to research on Black fathers.

Abstract

Much of the early psychological research on Black fathers and families employed a deficit lens, pathologizing Black fathers as absent and uninvolved contributors to their children's development. As a response, several Black psychologists articulated the need to move away from deficitbased approaches and employ strengths-based and adaptive frameworks to examine the social experiences of Black fathers and their contributions to child development. This transformative work was not only central to advancing research on Black fathers but also a cornerstone in the broader fathering literature. Though the list of foundational architects of Black fatherhood scholarship spans disciplines, we center this article around the contributions of eight Black psychologists-Drs.

Reclaiming the past and transforming our future: Introduction to the special issue on foundational contributions of Black scholars in psychology.

“…In response to the cultural shifts in the role of fathers and to counterbalance the negative portrayal of Black fathers in mainstream psychology, Cooper et al (2023) highlight the impactful contributions of several prominent Black scholars who dedicated their illustrious careers to contextualizing and destigmatizing the experiences of Black fathers and their influence on family life and child development. In their article, Cooper et al (2023) review the numerous theoretical advancements and methodological approaches that were developed and adopted by these scholars to center and accurately represent the diversity and multidimensional experiences of Black fathers. The authors discuss the expansive literature on Black fathers’ contribution to their children’s development and well-being and reflect on the efforts of the scholars to collaborate with their colleagues in order to integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines to the discourse and scholarship on Black fathering.…”