Degree Name

Education Specialist (EdS)

Semester of Degree Completion

1981

Thesis Director

Paul D. Overton

Abstract

Statement of the Problem:

The main purpose of this research is to compare the attitudes of graduate students, who came from different cultural backgrounds and were studying at Eastern Illinois University, toward sex-attributes and sex-roles. Meanwhile, sex, marital status, age, family's religious affiliation, educational major area, and length of time in the United States were included as considerable factors whict may influence their attitudes toward sex-attributes and sex-roles.

Procedures:

The materials of this survey include two parts. The first part is a letter written by the researcher and revised by her academic advisor and one nonacademic advisor, to all subjects. In this letter, the purpose and the subjects of this survey, the anonymous promise, the way of returning, and the appreciation to respondent's participation and cooperation are presented clearly.

The second part is "Questionnaire On Attitude Toward Sex-Attributes and Sex-Roles" which was divided into three sections: (I) Personal Information, (II) Attitude Toward Sex-Attributes, (III) Attitude Toward Sex- Roles.

Conclusions:

The focus of this research emphasize the cultural factors, actually the regional distribution suggested by Barry, Bacon, and Child (1957).

A. Sex-Attributes:

The hypothesis of this study that attitudes toward sex-stereotyped attitudes are cross-culturally similar in quality and different in quantity, independent of sex, marital status, age, religion, and educational major area, were mostly supported by the research data, in spite of necessity of some more detailed discussions and further investigation. But, the hypothesis that the length of time in the United States would cause the attitudes of subjects to be more close to those of Americans, has not been supported.

According to the regional distribution of the recent research, the attitudes of Europeans toward sex-attributes were mostly androgynous, and in order, Americans, Asians, and Africans were mostly stereotyped. This may be explained by the history of industrialization, the impact of Feminist Liberation Movement, the unit of family (nuclear or extended), the system of marriage (monogamy or polygamy) and the segregation of sexes.

The sex-attitudes belief system in which men and women differ in some degree in their "psychological makeup" was widely accepted by both sexes. The females held more androgynous attitudes toward masculine-stereotyped attributes than males. That's because the masculine attributes were highly valued by both sexes, and females expect to own them too, especially the female graduate students.

Obviously, marital status, age, and religion were not essential factors in determining the sex-attribute attitudes. Neither was the educational major area significant in spite of the suggestion that the respondents in applied field were likely to be more conservative or traditional in their attitudes toward sex-attributes than students in the liberal arts curricula.

B. Sex-Roles:

The hypotheses in Section IV have been supported except the variable of time in the United States.

The difference between Europeans and Americans were much smaller than those between any other two areas. The fact that the culture of the United States mainly stemmed from Europe was not deniable.

The Feminist Liberation Movement which prevailed and had more publicity in Europe and in the United States has made people in Europe and the United States be more aware of the waste of women's talents and the unequal treatment in employment opportunity. It asks for equalitarian treatment of men and women, and disagrees in the preference for men being hired or promoted. Now, many women have done what the men had done earlier: moved out of the house and into the labor market which caused both men and women in every geographic area to agree that husbands should share the household and childrearing activities in spite of Asians accepting it as mainly the obligations of the wife.

Sex discrimination, the extended family, the polygamous marriage, the patrilineal authority, the patrilocal inhabitancy, and the less industrialization in Asia and Africa, may have been the reasons for people of these two areas to accept greater authority for father in the family affairs, the husband as the major economic provider in the family, and male preference in being hired or promoted.

The variables of sex, marital status, age, religion, academic major field, and the length of time in the United States were independent of attitudes toward sex roles.

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