Fatherhood and the nexus of gendered attitudes towards domestic violence amongst future teachers in Poland
Fatherhood and the nexus of gendered attitudes towards domestic violence amongst future teachers in Poland

Summary/Abstract: In this paper we claim that gender attitudes towards fatherhood and parental practice,change quicker than attitudes of Polish society towards domestic violence (DV) and genderstereotypes. In the literary review we used an interpretative approach, embedded in MichaelRush’s (2015) theoretical framework, based on the Nordic turn in social policy and theconvergence and divergence of fathering across cultures (Seward & Rush, 2016). Focusing onan empirical case study a questionnaire directed to future teachers was used as a method ofdata collection, to interlink attitudes towards fatherhood, masculinity/femininity archetypesand violence in intimate relationships. Gender stereotypes as well as attitudes towards DV andpaternal involvement are strongly interconnected, and yet social change in these areasoccurs at varied speeds in each field, due to the differences in which society accepts newnorms. Whilst many studies suggest that involved fathers have a positive impact, leading toa decrease in violent behaviour, we take this further, demonstrating that change in fatherhood patterns has a positive impact on decreasing the social tolerance of DV. However, as ourstudy shows this must be accompanied by changes in gender stereotypes, including attitudestowards fatherhood.

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