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Youth's Attitudes about Women's Roles Influenced by many Family Factors |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: By the time they are adults, men and women have distinctive attitudes about the roles women should play in society, but little is known about how these views develop. A Penn State study tracked youth's attitudes for most of the school age and adolescent years and found varying patterns of change according to gender, birth order, parent's influences and other factors. "We charted the course of gender attitudes over time, and studied characteristics of families and family members that helped to shape the way youth's attitudes changed over time," says Dr. Ann Crouter, Penn State professor of human development and family studies and lead author of the study which is published in the current issue of the journal Child Development. Instead, change patterns were different for girls versus boys, for firstborns versus secondborns, for youth with a sister versus a brother, and for youth with parents who had more versus less traditional attitudes," added Crouter, also director, Social Science Research Institute and of the Children, Youth, and Families Consortium, both at Penn State. Two siblings and their mothers and fathers were interviewed at home every year for 9 years, until firstborns were about 19 and secondborns were about 16.5 years old. Similarly, girls and secondborn boys who had parents with more traditional attitudes and brothers did not become as nontraditional over time as other offspring, suggesting that having traditional parents and a brother is a potent combination that supports the development of traditionality in gender role attitudes. "Patterns for firstborns and secondborns were somewhat different, with secondborns tending to become less traditional in middle childhood but endorsing more traditional attitudes again beginning at about age 15," Crouter notes.
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