Cultural Navigators: International Faculty Fathers in the US Research University

Based on interviews with 16 international tenure-track and tenured faculty fathers from collectivist cultures at 2 U.S. research universities, this study explores how these men reconcile the demands of parenting with those of the academic career. Adding to a robust body of literature on the concerns of domestic faculty parents, this study focuses on the ways in which the unique concerns of raising children in a foreign country further complicate the ways in which parents try to navigate work and family issues. Using Lamb, Pleck, Charnov, and Levine's (1985) typology of paternal involvement as a theoretical guide, the article suggests that, as a result of being removed from support structures in their countries of origin, international faculty fathers may assume greater roles in their children's lives than they might have had they not moved to the United States.