Occupational Sex-Role Stereotyping in Elementary Students

The purpose of the researcher was to investigate occupational sex-role stereotyping in elementary school children. The five independent variables were gender, family structure, socioeconomic status of parents, formal education of parents, and grade level. The dependent variable was Occupational Sex-Stereotyping scores. The sample consisted of 164 children from grades 2, 4, and 6. Six null hypotheses were tested at the .05 level using three-way analysis of variance. A total of 21 comparisons plus 21 recurring were made. Of the 21 comparisons made, 5 were main effects and 16 were interactions. One of the 5 main effects was statistically significant at the .05 level. The statistically significant main effect was for grade level. The results from the main effect indicated that second graders had significantly higher sex-stereotyping scores than sixth graders. One of the 16 interactions was statistically significant at the .05 level. The statistically significant interaction was between gender and socioeconomic status of parents. The results of the present study appeared to support the following generalizations: (1) Second graders have more sex-stereotyping than sixth graders, (2) Family structure is not associated with sex-role occupational stereotyping, (3) Level of parent education is not associated with sex-role occupational stereotyping (4) Girls from low socioeconomic status parents had numerically greater sex-stereotyping than girls from high socioeconomic status parents, and (5) Boys from low socioeconomic status parents had numerically less sex-stereotyping than those from high socioeconomic status parents.