The Effects of Sex Role Awareness Training on Secondary High School Students.

Abstract

Purpose. This study investigated the effect of sex role awareness training on secondary high school students. The purpose of this study was to determine whether students' attitudes toward traditionally assigned sex roles could be changed through exposure to an awareness program designed to increase their consciousness of the meaning and implication of sex role assignments. For this purpose, an intervention unit, "Challenging Sex Role Stereotypes" was developed to sensitize students to the impact of sex role stereotypes on their attitudes toward sex role behavior. Thus, for three weeks, in fifteen, fifty-five minute periods, ninety-six students received sexual awareness training. Methodology. To measure the impact of the awareness program on student's self-perception and attitude toward sex role differentiation, the Bem Sex Role Inventory and the Attitudes Toward Women Survey were administered. A Principal Component Analysis Program reduced the sixty variables of the BSRI to five measures of personality characteristics: (1) Emotional Expressiveness, (2) Assertiveness, (3) Social Desirability, (4) Social Immaturity, and (5) Masculinity/Femininity. Four major indices, reflecting attitudes toward the role of women were extracted from fifty-five variables of the AWS: (1) Social Responsibility, (2) Double St and ard, (3) Patronization, and (4) Independence. These indices served as sub-hypotheses upon which the data reported in this study were based. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics; by Pairwise T-Tests of pre- and post-test means, by Analysis of Covariance with the pre-test as covariate, examining sex and race; and by a Step-Wise Forward Regression Program to select the best predictor of post-test scores. Findings. This intervention attests to the mutability of sex role attitudes. They are clearly susceptible to change. The treatment program as measured by the BSRI and AWS was effective in exp and ing the sex role orientation of secondary high school students. Students exposed to the intervention unit became more aware of the different treatment and expectations of men and women, and they expressed a more liberal view of sex roles. Although both males and females broadened their views of what is appropriate sex behavior, the intervention had greater impact on females as their attitude toward the social role of women were more positive and more pronounced than male attitudes. Race did not appear to significantly affect how a student responded to any of the measures of self-perception of personality characteristics or attitudes toward sex role. By focusing on their sexuality, the distance between the races was reduced within sex groups. The respondents of this intervention appeared to differentiate between people and issues on sexual rather than racial lines. The students identified themselves as male and female rather than Black and White. The interesting implication is that the program designed to deal with sexism changed the pattern of student intervention and fostered favorable communication between the races. Recommendations. Based on these findings, recommendations were made to utilize a pre-test/post-test control group research design to assess the instrumentation and include behavioral assessment of participants and include experimentation with non-stereotypic roles in the intervention. It was further recommended that the intervention program be lengthened and a male-female co-leader arrangement be implemented. The observation that raising students' sexual consciousness improved race relations, needs to be researched; therefore, it was further recommended that this sex role intervention be replicated with race relations as the instrumentation.