MANAGERIAL APTITUDE AS A FUNCTION OF SEX-ROLE ORIENTATION

The major purpose of this study was to determine whether significant relationships existed between the sex-role orientations of male and female principals and teachers and the respective performance of these groups on a managerial aptitude indicator. Relationships between the sex-role orientations of the respondents and the demographic variables of age, education, marital status, experience, birth order, family configuration, parents\u27 levels of education, and parents occupations, were also investigated. The subjects of this study consisted of 226 principals, 184 male and 42 female, and 186 teachers, 51 male and 135 female from Rockland and Westchester Counties in New York, and Bergen and Passaic Counties in New Jersey. The materials employed in this investigation were the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1978), the Management Aptitude Inventory (Denton, 1957), and the Biographical Data Inventory, developed by the researcher. The major conclusions based upon the findings of this study were: (1) When grouped by sex and position, all four categories of respondents demonstrated similar, average, performance on the managerial aptitude, intelligent job performance, as compared to the norm group. (2) Principals of both sexes performed significantly better than teachers of both sexes with respect to the managerial aptitudes of leadership qualities and proper job attitude. Therefore, women who have been successful in obtaining managerial roles have developed aptitudes and characteristics that are historically descriptive of males and perform in a manner similar to the males. (3) Women in this study responded to the MAI that they would behave in a manner which demonstrates higher motivation and aspiration levels than did the men. However, more male teacher respondents were actually pursuing administrative certification than were females. (4) Teachers performed better than principals on the managerial aptitude indicator concerned with the human aspect of work. Additionally all four educator groups achieved at a higher level on this scale than did the industrial norm group. (5) Male and female principals, separately and combined, scored higher on the BSRI Masculinity Scale than did both of the teacher groups, indicating that the women in the typical male administrator roles have adopted more masculine, more instrumental, self-discriptors than those in teaching who were more feminine and expressive. (6) As expected, the total group of males in this study scored higher on the BSRI Masculinity Scale than the females, and the total group of females scored higher on the BSRI Femininity Scale than did the males. (7) Subjects of the study categorized as having either masculine or androgynous sex-role orientation scored significantly higher on the managerial aptitudes, Leadership Qualities, and Proper Job Attitude, than did those with feminine sex-role orientations. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that possession of masculine or instrumental behavioral skills is necessary for satisfactory demonstration of leadership aptitude. Moreover, while expressive capabilities can be effectively combined with these instrumental ones, as in the case of the androgynous subjects, those individuals who operate in only an expressive or feminine mode do not demonstrate the same levels of skill with respect to the aptitude measured. (8) The investigation revealed only one area, education level of male respondents, in which a significant relationship existed between sex-role orientation and this demographic variable