Contemporary psychology, Vol. 13 No. 1, 2010.
Review article
What is measured under the concept of gender roles? The review and evaluation of gender role scales and attitudes toward gender roles scales
Ivana Jugović
orcid.org/0000-0003-0362-0259
; Institute for Social Research
Abstract
The aim of this article is to review the key instruments measuring gender roles and attitudes toward gender roles and to evaluate these scales taking into consideration their psychometric characteristics. The most popular scales are identified; scales measuring attitudes toward gender roles Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS, Spence & Helmreich, 1972) and Sex Role Egalitarianism Scale (SRES, Beere, King, Beere, & King, 1984), gender roles scales Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI, Bem, 1974), Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ, Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1975) and Sex-Role Behavior Scale (SRBS, Orlofsky, Ramsden, & Cohen, 1982), and two scales intended for children and adolescents Attitudes Toward Women Scale for Adolescents (AWSA, Galambos, Petersen, Richards, & Gitelson, 1985) and Children's Personal Attributes Questionnaire (CPAQ, Hall & Halberstadt, 1980). These scales are evaluated according to the following criteria: the theoretical theses they were based on, information about the scale reliability and validity and the appropriateness of the measurement for contemporary gender roles. Evaluation has shown that most of the scales have satisfactory levels of reliability. However, validity of the scales is problematic given that the expected factor structures for the majority of the scales were not confirmed or that the results of factor analyses were not consistent. The limitation of the majority of the scales is that they were constructed on college student samples, and the problem with the scales constructed in the 1970s is that some aspects of their content are outdated. Research has also shown that there is a need for the construction of a new scale of gender roles for adolescents based on the theoretical consideration of the concept of gender roles in adolescence.
Keywords
gender role scales; attitudes toward gender roles
Hrčak ID:
83030
URI
Publication date:
15.6.2010.
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