Throughout my career much of my research and teaching has focused on the social psychology of men’s experiences related to sex, reproduction, fathering, and paid/volunteer work with children outside the home. I’m interested in how men socially construct their identities as persons capable of creating and caring for human life in various settings. Since 2000, my research has been based on qualitative in-depth interviews and some ethnography work.

Most recently, my writing addresses “big idea” issues. For example, my book Chasing We-ness: Cultivating Empathy and Leadership in a Polarized World (University of Toronto Press, 2023) is an interdisciplinary exploration of why, how, and with what effect we build we-ness into our lives. In this work, I explain how three different expressions of “we-ness” or group belonging (deep dyadic, ideational, and spontaneous) are essential to how we express our identities and organize our social lives in the following social domains: primary groups, civic and community groups, thought communities, leisure/sports, and work. I propose strategies to cultivate healthy forms of we-ness by developing what I label MEAL life skills (mindfulness, empathy, altruism, and leadership). I demonstrate how promoting personal growth, community engagement, and social justice perspectives provides the logic to creative supportive environments that will promote heathy forms of we-ness in diverse contexts.

I’m currently finishing an interdisciplinary book, People, Places, and Belonging (tentative title) which pivots on the assumption that place has social and political implications. My focus on place extends our understanding of the dynamic, pervasive, and consequential processes that nurture we-ness. I explore why, how, and with what effect our experience with aspects of place overlap with our efforts to establish we-ness in our lives. I focus on place processes associated with claims, attachment, rituals, and transitions. In addition, I show how applying MEAL life skills can enrich our expressions of “place consciousness” and “place attachment” in diverse settings while informing placemaking strategies to enhance personal, group, and community well-being. This approach is premised on the notion that our embodied minds and activities are situated in socially constructed places.

In terms of my qualitative research the following represents a brief summary. My most recent empirical study, Kids Who Tri (2019), explores the links between youth triathlon, models of youth sports, and childrearing/coaching philosophies. Based on interviews with parents, coaches, race directors, USA Triathlon staff, and young triathletes, the book challenges leaders in youth sports and fitness, education, and community development to join forces to make youth triathlon a mainstream sport in our schools and communities. Dads, Kids, and Fitness (2016) focuses on the intersection of health issues for fathers and their children and is grounded in interviews with dads and pediatric health care professionals as well as autoethnographic observations. My 2012 book, Nurturing Dads (with Kevin Roy) integrates data from seven different qualitative studies to explore the prospects for developing a wide range of social initiatives that encourage fathers to be more attentive and responsive to their children. In my 2008 book Men on a Mission, I focus on men’s experiences working with children in diverse areas (e.g., coaches, teachers, youth ministers, probation officers, Big Brothers, Boy Scout leaders, 4-H club leaders, youth intervention specialists). One facet of this project examines how youth work and fathering mutually influence one another. My research with stepfathers, Stepdads (2004) considers how they develop and manage their involvement with stepchildren and the “family” network (mother, biological father, own children). I am also interested in how physical and social spaces affect fathers’ identity work and involvement with their children. Another study with teenage and young adult men, Sex, Men, and Babies (2002, with Sally Hutchinson) focuses on how they describe their romantic relationships, sex lives, and procreative experiences. It provides the foundation for my Procreative Identity Framework—a model exploring how men become aware of their ability to procreate and its meaning for them over time.

See CV for a complete listing of books, articles, chapters, and reports.