Abstract

This study adopted the androgynous perspective that traditional sex roles are harmful and that they can be changed by individual and environmental factors, and looked at the effects of elementary school teacher's attitudes and programs on the children's sex roles. In the first part of the study, 327 elementary school teachers answered a questionnaire which included general sex role attitudes, perceptions of sex differences, and sex role related teaching attitudes. In general, the teachers were found to have rather traditional sex role attitudes and stereotypic perceptions of sex differences, to treat boys and girls in sex-stereotypic ways, and to regard it desirable to seperate them when it is possible. The second part was a field experiment examining the effects of nonsexist teaching attitudes and programs on the children's sex role attitudes. A first grade class with a teacher who was found to have liberal sex role attitudes was selected as the experimental group, and went through the experimental program desinged for nonsexist education. Both experimental and control groups were given pre-and post-tests as well as observed for two hours per week during the treatment peiod of four months. The results showed that the children already have stereotyped sex role attitudes when they enter elementary school, and that their attitudes become even more stereotyped after the first semester. The intervention with a nonsexist experimental program showed, however, that the teacher's sex-equitable teaching attitudes and materials can have a significant effect on changing the children's sex role attidudes to be more flexible and androgynous.