Occupational Sex-Role Stereotyping in Secondary Students

The purpose of the researcher was to investigate occupational sex-role stereotyping in secondary school students. The independent variables were: gender, socioeconomic status of the parents, mother\u27s employment outside the home, parent\u27s formal education, family structure, classification of the student, size of school district, and nationality. The dependent variable was scores from the Occupational Sex-Role stereotyping instrument. The sample consisted of 324 secondary students, 173 females and 151 males. Six composite null hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance. Each composite null hypothesis was tested employing three-way analysis of variance (general linear model). A total of 25 comparisons plus 17 recurring were made. Of the 25 comparisons, 8 were for main effects and 17 for interactions. Of the 8 main effects, 2 were statistically significant at the .05 level. The following main effects were statistically significant: gender and nationality. The results indicated the following for main effects: 1. females reported statistically less occupational sex-role stereotyping than males, and 2. students of white nationality reported statistically less occupational sex-role stereotyping than nonwhite students. None of the 17 interactions were statistically significant at the .05 level. The results of the present study appeared to support the following generalizations: (1) females reported less occupational sex-role stereotyping than males, (2) white students reported less occupational sex-role stereotyping than nonwhite students, (3) no association between socio-economic status of parents and occupational sex- role stereotyping, (4) no association between mother working outside the home and occupational sex-role stereotyping, (5) no association between parents\u27 level of education and occupational sex-role stereotyping, (6) no association between family structure and occupational sex-role stereotyping, (7) no association between classification of the student and occupational sex-role stereotyping, and (8) no association between the size of school and occupational sex-role stereotyping