Abstract
Studies of college freshmen find that men are more sexist in their attitudes than women. Does this hold also for high school students? This paper reports the relationship of (1) sex-role attitudes to selected school and family characteristics and (2) attitudes toward family life to sex-role conceptions for women and men. The study is based on 529 students in grades 9 to 12 attending four high schools. The findings show that males are more sexist than females and Blacks more so than Whites. Women who are bright, from upper class backgrounds, and whose mothers work are more equalitarian in sex-role conceptions. For men, family background is unimportant, but attending an elite public school seems to foster equalitarian sex-role conceptions. Men's sex-role attitudes are harder to explain than women's, and, unlike women, their role attitudes have little connection to their family orientation.
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This work was made possible by a grant from the Buhl Foundation.
Research interests include women's career development, evaluation of social programs, and social indicators for urban services.
Has been involved in research on curriculum evaluation, sex roles, and voting behavior.
Research interests are curriculum development, research on testing, and history of school reform.
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Angrist, S.S., Mickelsen, R. & Penna, A.N. Sex differences in sex-role conceptions and family orientation of high school students. J Youth Adolescence 6, 179–186 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02139083
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02139083