Kevin Roy
University of Maryland
Kevin Roy has been involved with research and program evaluation of the life course of men on the margins of families and the work force for over ten years. Across four separate life history studies, each with 40 fathers, he has conducted ethnographic and qualitative research on changes in men’s involvement with their children over time. Through work with local fatherhood programs for low-income African American fathers in Chicago and Indianapolis, he has examined patterns of men’s transitions into work and family. Roy has used ethnographic data and reviews to explore how ecological factors, such as gang and police presence, street violence, and lack of resources, shape men’s physical mobility and access to their children. He has further explored how policy systems, such as welfare reform and incarceration, shape active fathering for poor and minority fathers. Roy’s recent research focuses on the maintenance of intergenerational relationships, the emergence of men’s generativity, and systems of social support among low-income and minority fathers, through the support of NICHD.
Roy has worked closely with the Welfare, Children, and Families Three City Ethnographic Study as well. He has documented mothers’ experience with job search and job maintenance, as well as their efforts to recruit biological and non-biological fathers for involvement with their children. He has published in Social Problems, Journal of Family Issues, and Family Relations, and has coedited a recent volume, entitled Situated Fathering: A Focus on Physical and Social Spaces (2005).
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