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AbstractThe aim of this article is to offer a novel theoretical perspective on family practitioners' engagement with fathers, through the lens of theories of social care and capabilities. The paper shows how research on low engagement of fathers in family‐ and child‐related social interventions has advanced along three main axes: (a) giving voice to fathers, (b) analyzing workers' perceptions, and (c) what works analysis of father‐oriented programs. I point to several problems in existing research: the absence of a unifying theoretical framework and the lack of sufficient attention to issues of relationality and agency. Theories of care and the capabilities approach are offered as a framework. Applying these theoretical frameworks to existing research on father engagement raises new questions and directions for further studies, mainly in two directions: first, relationality and the configurations of relations and power within families and within welfare systems, and second, the effect of agency on father engagement.

Gender equality-oriented policy-making adopts a complex attitude toward the role of fathers. While some branches of the legislative branches see the potential in engaging fathers in the household for promoting gender equality, others see the risk in men appropriating women's few sources of power. In this article, the subject positions given to men in the legislative process of the birth leave for fathers programme in Israel are examined. I show how, in accordance with this division, fathers are given two subject positions – that of the enemy and that of the ally. However, policy-makers fail to put fathers in the role of citizens, seeing them as entitled to rights based on their own status. This situation mirrors the citizenship of Israeli women, who are, in turn, limited to their motherhood. While the claim that fathers are not seen as citizens, and that their rights are not protected enough, might sound absurd, I claim that such a position is required in order to promote a radical change in the division of labour within the household.

The criminalization of poverty, the process in which recipients of social security benefits are construed as frauds, is a well-documented phenomenon. Two aspects of this process are the use of stereotypes as a tool in fraud accusations and the targeting of marginalized populations. In this article, I wish to expand the gendered discussion of this phenomenon to men by examining the process of the construction of Israeli fathers wishing to take parental leave as welfare frauds. I will claim that this process is based on gendered assumptions that deny the possibility of fathers wishing to care for their children. The program that allows fathers to share parental leave experiences a high reported rate of fraud by fathers claiming parental leave benefits. However, analysis shows that the evidence does not support these reports and that claims on fraud and abuse are the result of a tendentious interpretation of the data by bureaucrats. This tendentiousness is based, I argue, on implicit assumptions about the nature of men. As this case shows, criminalization of benefit recipients can be targeted at nonmarginalized or even privileged groups. This sheds new light both on the criminalization process and on the workings of the gendered power structure.

AbstractContemporary research on fatherhood describes fatherhood as a multifaceted, dynamic social, and cultural construction, deeply affected by class, race, and gender inequalities. However, critics claim that dominant theories on fatherhood have been mostly elaborated based on middle‐class, Anglo‐centered, dominant, and mainstream fatherhood, whereas non‐hegemonic, marginalized father groups have remained undertheorized. This article echoes this shortfall and proposes to theorize non‐hegemonic fatherhood through a more inclusive theoretical framework capable of describing the social contexts that shape fathers' identities, behaviors, and cultures. Based on intersectional theories, the article argues for a theoretical revision of the ways in which these groups of non‐hegemonic fathers are represented in research. To illustrate this, we provide some examples of studies based on case studies of marginalized fathers in Israel. Israel is rich ground for such research since it is characterized by traditional models of fatherhood, expressed through hegemonic models of masculinity, as well as normative family models in the context of high levels of ethnic and class inequality.

While it is widely accepted that social work interventions are more productive when they include fathers, fathers are largely left out of child and family social service interventions in Israel and most Western countries. Current research worldwide focuses on the role that fathers, mothers and social workers play in causing this phenomenon. In this article, we shed light on the importance of a fourth element: the policy-making process. In a case study of Israeli social services, we interviewed leading bureaucrats and policy makers regarding their position on engaging fathers and identified three main conflicts hindering policy makers' ability and motivation to promote policy favouring father engagement: a gendered profession conflict, a political conflict, and an ethical conflict. We show how these conflicts, each emerging from a different sphere, together create a conflict-ridden environment that may explain policy makers' lack of action. Finally, we provide our conclusion and discuss the limitations of the study.

Research on the engagement of fathers in family- and child-oriented social work interventions has focused on individual factors relating to the father, to the mother, or the social worker. Much less attention has been paid to the impact of organizational aspects of the social services themselves. This article uses the methodology of institutional ethnography to examine this impact on the engagement of fathers in those services provided by municipal Departments of Social Services in Israel. We found that service delivery was structured by the primary contact person assumption—that one person should be designated as the primary contact in the routine course of an intervention. Together with gendered, political, and cultural factors that support preference for the mother, this structuring assumption results in a full or partial exclusion of fathers from family- and child-oriented interventions.