The educational role of fathers: Disability and new challenges to support parenting

Abstract

Fathers of children with disabilities have a long history of being perceived
in the literature as a “peripheral parent”. More recently, it has also become
apparent that fathers themselves often feel overlooked by both researchers
and practitioners in social and educational field. The outcome of a long history
of lack of this issues – fatherhood and disability – is that we relatively
little is known about fathers’ experiences and their involvement in raising a
child with a disability.
In addition, the educational role of fathers with a disabled child has shifted
in tandem with the social role of women and with the societal and cultural
changes, in the 1960s. Starting from this scenario and to reflect recent
changes in families and in fatherhood as well, it would be beneficial to rethink
the services in an inclusive approach, such as to include and meet the
needs of all families (included those with a disabled child) in order to promote
a social inclusion in ordinary contexts and not in separate ones.