Department of Human & Community Development, University of Illinois

Brent McBride

 

 

 

 

 

Curriculum vita (pdf)

Education

Ph.D. 1988, University of Maryland, Early Childhood Education

M.A. 1984, Ball State University, Early Childhood and Elementary Education

B.S. 1982, Ball State University, Elementary Education

Research Interests

Father involvement in child rearing; childcare; parent education; parent involvement in school settings.

My research has focused on the topic of father involvement in childrearing. My work has identified antecedents of father involvement and examined the relationships between father involvement and perceptions of parental competence, marital satisfaction, attitudes toward the paternal role, parental stress, and child temperament. The applied focus of this research has been in evaluating the impact of parent education and support programs designed specifically for fathers in order to increase the types and amounts of involvement men participate in, in increasing perceptions of parental competence, in decreasing the amount of stress fathers experience in their parental roles, and in improving the quality of father-child interactions. These efforts have led to the development of a model of parent education and support programs for fathers that can be adapted for use by family life and parent educators. In order to extend my work examining the antecedents of father involvement, I have recently begun work with a large, public domain national data set (i.e., the first and second waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics – Child Development Supplement) on a project that examines the ways in which men become involved in both home and school settings across a wide variety of contexts (e.g., low income families, minority families, divorced/non-custodial fathers, dual earner vs. single earner families, etc.). A portion of this work is targeted at empirically testing two theoretical models that outline hypothesized causal relationships among various determinants of father involvement.

A related research interest has been the examination of parental involvement processes as children make the transition from informal learning environments of home settings to more formalized learning environments of group settings and schools. A primary focus of this work has been an examination of parent and teacher attitudes towards home/school relationships, and identification of the barriers that prohibit many early childhood programs from becoming family-centered.

One final area of my research has come from my role as Director of the Child Development Laboratory at the University of Illinois. Lab schools play a critical role in bridging the gap between theory, research, and practice in the child development and early childhood education fields. In recent years I have been engaged in research that seeks to identify the barriers confronting lab school staff as they try to balance the needs of young children enrolled in their programs while at the same time facilitating and supporting teaching, research, and outreach activities of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. A goal of this work is to develop a knowledge base that can inform lab school programs nationwide as they seek to enhance the ways in which they address the teaching, research, and outreach missions of their respective institutions.

Selected Journal Articles

McBride, B.A., Brown, G.L., Bost, K.K., Shin, N., Vaughn, B., & Korth, B. (2005). Paternal identity, maternal gatekeeping, and father involvement. Family Relations, 54, 360-372.

McBride, B.A., Schoppe-Sullivan, S.J., & Ho, M. (2005). The mediating role of fathers' school involvement on student achievement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 26, 201-216.

Branscomb, K.R., & McBride, B.A. (2005). Academics versus service: Balancing competing missions in laboratory schools offering full-day programming. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 25, 113-121.

Schoppe-Sullivan, S.J., McBride, B.A., & Ho, M. (2004). Father involvement: Unitary versus multidimensional constructs. Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 2, 147-164.

McBride, B.A., Bae, J., & Blatchford, K. (2003). Family-school-community partnerships in rural Pre-K at-risk programs. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 1, 49-72.

McBride, B.A., Schoppe, S.J., & Rane, T.R. (2002). Child characteristics, parentingstress, and parental involvement: Fathers versus mothers. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64, 998-1011.

McBride, B.A., Bae, J., & Wright, M.S. (2002). An examination of family-school partnerships in rural prekindergarten programs. Early Education and Development,13, 107-127.

McBride, B.A., & Rane, T.R. (2001). Father/male involvement in prekindergarten at-risk programs: An exploratory study. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 16, 77-93.

Rane, T.R., & McBride, B.A. (2000) Identify theory as a guide to understanding fathers' involvement with their children. Journal of Family Issues, 21, 347-366.

McBride, B.A., & Bae, J., & Rane, T.R. (1998). Family-school-community partnerships in prekindergarten at-risk programs: An exploratory study. The School-Community Journal, 8, 39-56.

McBride, B.A., & Hicks, T.M. (1999). Teacher training and research: Does it make a difference on lab school program quality? Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 20, 19-27.

McBride, B.A., & Rane, T.R., (1998). Parenting alliance as a prediction of father involvement: An exploratory study. Family Relations, 47, 229-236.

McBride, B.A., & Rane, T.R. (1997). Role identity, role investments, and paternal involvement: Implications for parenting programs for men. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 12, 173-197.

McBride, B.A., & Rane, T.R. (1997). Father/male involvement in early childhood programs: Issues and challenges. Early Childhood Education Journal, 25, 11-15.

Selected Books

McBride, B.A., & Barbour, N.B. (2003). Bridging the gap between theory, research and practice: The role of child development laboratory programs in early childhood education. New York: JAI Press/Elsevier.

Selected Book Chapters

McBride, B.A., Rane, T.R., Schoppe, S.J., & Ho, M. (2004). Multiple determinants of father involvement: An exploratory study using the PSID-CDS data set. In R. Day & M. Lamb (Eds.), Conceptualizing and measuring father involvement (pp. 321-340). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

McBride, B.A., & Lutz, M.M. (2004). Intervention: Changing the nature and extent of father involvement. In M.E. Lamb (Ed.), The role of father involvement in child development (4 th ed.) (pp. 446-475). New York: Wiley.

McBride, B.A., & Baumgartner, J. (2003). The changing profile of teaching, research and outreach activities in lab school programs. In B.A. McBride & N.E. Barbour (Eds.), Bridging the gap between theory, research and practice: The role of child development laboratory programs in early childhood education (pp. 181-200). New York: Elsevier/JAI Press.

McBride, B.A. & Rane, T.R. (2001). Father/male involvement in early childhood programs: Training staff to work with men. In J. Fagan & Alan Hawkins (Eds.), Clinical and education interventions for fathers (pp. 171-189). New York: Haworth Press.

McBride, B.A., Bae, J., & Rane, T.R. (2001). Family-school partnerships in prekindergarten at-risk programs: An exploratory study. In S. Redding & L. Thomas (Eds.), The community of the school (pp. 229-245). Lincoln, IL: The Academic Institute.

Awards and Honors

1999 Faculty Award for Excellence in Research, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Professional Services

Currently on the editorial board for the following journals:
Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Early Education and Development

Early Childhood Research and Practice

Courses Taught

HDFS 205: Infancy and Early Childhood

HDFS 407: Youth and Child Services