Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Brim, Orville G.

Titel

Family Structure and Sex Role Learning by Children: A Further Analysis of Helen Koch's Data

Ist Teil von

• Sociometry, 1958-03, Vol.21 (1), p.1-16

Ort / Verlag

Albany, N.Y., etc: American Sociological Association

Erscheinungsjahr

1958

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The distinctive contribution to sociol has been to demonstrate that the process of role-taking occurs through the actor's trying to act as the other would act. As a corollary, 2 hypo's, derived from a general hypo of assimilation through interaction as set forth by Cottrell that interaction between two persons leads to assimilation of roles, are considered: (a) in the process of learning to discriminate what belongs to oneself & what belongs to the other, assimilation is arrested to a greater degree where attention is paid to this knowledge, & (b) in interaction which occurs between 2 figures of unequal power, the actor would adopt more of the characteristics of the more powerful, as contrasted with the less powerful, other person. Considering sex-role learning, there is a comparative dearth of res & theory concerning the effects of siblings which makes the data presented by Helen Koch on personality traits invaluable to assess predictive measures to specific application of the above hypo's: (1) Cross-sex siblings will adopt the role of the opposite sex & the assimilation of roles should take place, (2) this effect would be more noticeable in the younger sibling, since the older siblings are more powerful & more able to differentiate their own roles, & (3) this effect would be more noticeable for siblings closest in age. Koch's data of 384 S's, 5 & 6 yrs of age, from the Chicago public Sch's & one private Sch with characteristics of unbroken, native-born, white, Ur, & 2-child families, include relationship between sex of child, sex of sibling, ordinal position of child, age diff of siblings, & the teacher's rating for each child on 58 traits. The 58 traits included 24 of the Fels Child Behavior Scales, & 34 items of the California Behavior Inventory for Nursery Sch Children. The procedure for the further analysis in this study is based upon the judgment of the writer & 3 professionals as to which of the 58 traits are considered masculine (instrumental) or feminine (expressive) roles. In this analysis, all traits on which a sub-group had both high & low entries were dropped. The result of this further analysis indicates substantiation of all of the hypo's tested: (i) Cross-sex siblings have more traits of the opposite sex than those of the same-sex siblings, (ii) the ordinal control shows that the older girl with a younger brother has more high-masculinity traits than the older girl with a younger sister, (iii) the boy with a younger sister has more feminine traits than the boy with a younger brother, (iv) the boy with an older sister is substantially more feminine, & (v) girls seem to be more feminine than boys are masculine. In general, cross-sex siblings tend to assimilate traits of the opposite sex & these traits are pronounced in the younger of the 2 siblings. These findings are signif at the 5% level based upon separate analyses of variance. A. L. Rosenblum.