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C 2002)
Sex Roles, Vol. 47, Nos. 5/6, August 2002 (
The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate the relationship between genderrole identity and attitudes toward marriage by comparing Bems gender schema theory
and Spences multifactorial model of gender identity; (2) to examine the effects of gendersegregated school backgrounds on gender-role identity and attitudes toward marriage. A total
of 524 male and 696 female Japanese college students completed the Japanese version of
the Bem Sex Role Inventory and a series of questions regarding attitudes toward marriage.
Overall results were more supportive of Spences multifactorial model. The effect of school
background was found only in women; women without any coeducational school background
had relatively strong masculinity and desired to marry at an older age, but tended to have a
conservative opinion about men taking nontraditional roles.
KEY WORDS: gender-role identity; attitudes toward marriage; school background.
INTRODUCTION
Perry and Bussey (1984) defined gender-role development as the process whereby children come to
acquire the behaviors, attitudes, interests, emotional
reactions, and motives that are culturally defined
as appropriate for members of their sex (p. 262).
This definition suggests that gender roles include
behavioral, attitudinal, and personality aspects. It
also assumes that these gender aspects are closely
related to each other because they are expected
to be consistent. Culturally, Japan has strong traditional gender stereotypes compared to other countries (Inoue, 1992; Williams & Best, 1990). This fact
suggests that gender-related phenomena in Japan
should be consistent. The primary purpose of the
present study is to examine the interrelatedness of
gender phenomena by focusing on gender-role iden-
1 Akita
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Theoretical and Empirical Controversy on the
Interrelatedness of Behavioral, Attitudinal,
and Personality Aspects of Gender Roles
Both Bem (1974) and Spence (Spence,
Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974) adopt the trait approach to measure an individuals masculinity and
femininity. They also agree on the conception that
masculinity and femininity are two independent
unidimensional properties (Spence, 1984). However,
with respect to the interrelatedness of gender phenomena, they have different perspectives. According
to the gender schema theory (Bem, 1981), peoples
gender typing is the result of gender-schematic processing. Gender-schematic persons tend to process
information, including information about themselves,
according to the cultures definitions of masculinity
and femininity (Bem, 1985). The gender schema
theory suggests the interrelatedness of genderrelated phenomena: gender-personality type, gender
attitudes, and gender-related behaviors.
On the other hand, Spence (1984, 1985) proposed
the multifactorial model of gender identity; she suggested that gender-related personality, attitudes, and
behaviors are relatively independent. She stated that
at the level of the individual these different kinds of
gender-related attributes, attitudes, and behaviors do
not necessarily have common developmental histories (Spence, 1984, p. 3). On the basis of her model,
she further claimed that the instruments that measure
individuals gender-role identity such as the Bem Sex
Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1974) and the Personal
Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ; Spence et al., 1974)
were not for assessing individuals broad gender concepts such as gender-typing or gender schematization,
but for measuring individuals desirable aspects of instrumentality and expressiveness (Spence, 1993).
Both of these theoretical perspectives have some
empirical support. Consistent with Bems perspective, Ickes and his colleagues found an association
between gender-role identity and social behaviors
(Ickes & Barnes, 1978; Ickes, Schermer, & Steeno,
1979). Collins, Waters, and Waters (1979) found
that gender-typed men and women had less favorable attitudes toward women managers than did less
gender-typed persons. Frable (1989) also found that
gender-typed male and female undergraduates were
more likely to evaluate gender rules as fair and to dislike gender rule violators than were those who were
not gender-typed.
Several other studies provide partial support
for Bems perspective by indicating a relationship
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Effects of Gender-Segregated School
on Gender-Role Development
Along with the new educational system, coeducational schools in Japan were started after World
War II (WW II). According to the annual survey
on schools conducted by the Ministry of Education
(1999), 14% of high schools are gender segregated.
Four percent of them are only for boys, whereas 10%
of them are only for girls. Although similar statistics
on junior high schools were not available, the ratio
of the gender-segregated junior high schools is probably smaller than that of high schools because compulsory education for children in Japan is enforced
through junior high school. Thus, the majority of current junior high and high schools in Japan are coeducational. Hashimoto (1992) stated that after WW II the
coeducational system had tremendous influence on
changes in Japanese peoples gender-role perceptions
and attitudes. People in Japan generally think that
the gender segregated school system enhances traditional gender role identity and attitudes. In fact, some
people have claimed that gender-segregated schooling would be better particularly for women because
it would boost their femininity (Hamao, 1972). However, Kimura (1999) claimed that although school culture on the surface seemed egalitarian, there were
many hidden aspects that transmitted sexist ideology
to children. She further stated that the sexist ideology could be conveyed more effectively in coeducational schools where gender comparisons can be
done easily and clearly. Similarly Fujita (1993) recognized that underlying the problem of the coeducational school system was the hidden curriculum that
cultivated traditional gender-role norms in children.
Thus, it is implied that Kimura and Fujita believe
that the coeducational school system in Japan does
not necessarily produce more egalitarian gender-role
identity and attitudes.
There are few empirical studies of the influence
of gender-segregated schools on gender phenomena.
A study conducted in England showed that students
aged 1415 years who attended coeducational schools
reported more stereotypical perceptions of genderlinked traits, general abilities, school subjects, and
career choices than did those in gender-segregated
schools (Lawrie & Brown, 1992). In Japan, Ito (1997,
1998) examined the influences of gender-segregation
in schools on gender conceptions and gender-related
awareness among high school students. She found
that male high school students in boys only schools
had more stereotypical gender conceptions than their
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counterparts in coeducational schools, whereas such
a difference between schools was not found among
girls. The results of these two studies are inconsistent
and reflected the debate on the effect of coeducational
schooling.
In both of the previous studies the researchers
examined concurrent effects of school setting in the
different ages groups, which may contribute to the
inconsistent results. In the present study, we examined the participants history of school environment in
terms of gender and how this variable might influence
college students gender-role identity and attitudes toward marriage. In this way, we would be able to see
the gender-segregated school effect from a developmental viewpoint.
In general, school culture reflects the genderrole structure in Japanese society (Fujita, 1993), so
in gender-segregated schools students have to assume both roles. Therefore, we hypothesized that people who had graduated from gender-segregated junior high and high schools would have nontraditional
gender-role identity and more egalitarian attitudes toward marriage than would those who had graduated
from coeducational junior high and/or high schools.
METHOD
Participants
The final 1,220 participants in this study consisted
of 524 male and 696 female unmarried college students. Married participants (n = 10) were excluded
from the analysis. The average age of participants was
19.5 years old (SD = 1.6), with a range of 1831 years
of age. The students majors were diverse, including
arts and humanities, education, economics, agriculture, engineering, medicine/dentistry, law, natural science, and marine science.
Measures
The Japanese version of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Katsurada & Sugihara, 1999; Sugihara &
Katsurada, 1999) was employed to measure individuals gender-role identity. A validation study of the
BSRI in Japanese culture (Sugihara & Katsurada,
2000) indicated that 12 masculine and 7 feminine
items of the original BSRI possessed the etic (universal) aspect of gender-related personality traits in
Japan. In the present study, the average score on these
Procedure
We solicited cooperation from colleagues in universities and colleges in various areas of Japan. Colleagues in 14 universities and colleges agreed to collect data. They administered questionnaires during
their class time. Participation was on a voluntary basis;
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RESULTS
The medians of masculinity and femininity scores
were 3.80 and 4.33 for men and 3.60 and 4.33 for
women. Using the median split method, the participants were categorized into four gender-types. Men
and women similarly fell in the Bems four groups.
Eighteen percent of men were identified as Masculine,
19% as Feminine, 33% as Androgynous, and 30% as
Undifferentiated. Of the women, 19% were identified
as Masculine, 20% as Feminine, 31% as Androgynous,
and 30% as Undifferentiated. To make the examination of hypotheses easy, these four types were rearranged into two groups: traditional and nontraditional
groups. Masculine type was considered traditional for
men and Feminine type for women; the rest were considered nontraditional. These two gender types were
used to examine the hypotheses in this study.
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Table I. Means, Standard Deviations, and t-Values of Traditional
and Nontraditional Womens Attitudes Toward Marriage
Traditional
Nontraditional
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
3.02
25.96
0.52
2.97
2.88
26.75
0.57
4.28
2.66
2.02
2.38
0.69
2.54
0.64
2.59
< .05.
< .01.
< .01.
Nontraditional
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
2.69
27.72
0.63
5.45
2.88
27.61
0.58
3.87
2.90
ns
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Masculinity
Femininity
430
3.60a (0.90)
4.26 (0.90)
134
3.52a (0.82)
4.31 (0.89)
34
4.00b (1.04)
4.62 (1.04)
Note. Means in the same row that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05. in the HSD
comparison.
p < .10. p < .05.
Table IV. The Means (and Standard Deviations) of Womens Desired Age for Marriage Divided by
Educational Background
Educational background
408
128
32
26.49a (2.86)
26.63a (5.49)
28.41b (9.65)
F(2, 565) = 3.08
Note. Means in the same row that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05 in the HSD comparison.
p < .05.
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Table V. Frequency Distribution of Womens Attitudes Toward the Idea of House Husband
According to the Educational Background
Idea of house husband
Educational background
Both junior high and high schools were coeducational
Either junior high or high school was coeducational
Both junior high and high schools were for women only
Agree
Disagree
264 (63%)
57 (44%)
16 (47%)
158 (37%)
74 (56%)
18 (53%)
ented characteristics, but womens traditional genderrole identity (strong femininity) was. Also, men and
womens traditional gender-role identity was not related to their attitude toward men taking nontraditional gender roles, which reflected neither selfassertive nor interpersonally oriented characteristics.
Another association found in this study was between
womens nontraditional gender-role identity (strong
masculinity) and their motivation to work after marriage, which reflected self-assertive characteristics.
Thus, the present results seem to sustain Spences theory more strongly than Bems gender schema theory.
The secondary purpose of this study was to examine the effect of gender-segregated school environment on gender-role identity and attitudes toward marriage with a developmental perspective.
We expected that gender-segregated school backgrounds would enhance nontraditional gender-role
identity and liberal attitudes toward marriage. When
we examined the hypothesis in terms of traditional
and nontraditional gender types, there was no effect
of gender-segregated school backgrounds on gender
types. However, when we examined it in terms of
masculinity and femininity scores, the results indicated that the women who went to gender-segregated
junior high and high school had higher masculinity
scores than those who had coeducational school backgrounds. They also tended to have higher femininity
scores than those who had coeducational school backgrounds.
As mentioned before, school life in junior high
and high school requires both masculine and feminine characteristics. Actually, students perceive various roles in school according to gender. For example, they consider that the president of the student
body or a leader of a class should be a boys job and
the secretary of the student body or a sub-leader of
a class should be a girls job (Kimura, 1999). Female
students in gender-segregated junior high and high
school assume all of these roles. Therefore, women
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who spent 6 years in a gender-segregated school environment have developed their masculine personality traits as well as their feminine personality traits,
whereas women who had coeducational school backgrounds may not have developed theirs. Also, if the
sexist ideology is conveyed more effectively in coeducational settings as Kimura (1999) stated, women
who had a longer coeducational school experience
may have received stronger negative messages about
women. Therefore, such educational experience may
have inhibited womens development of masculinity.
Another explanation for high masculinity of
women with gender-segregated school backgrounds
is self-selected effect; masculine girls might have selected gender-segregated schools, thus their masculinity scores could have been high before they entered
a junior high and high school. It is generally believed that gender-segregated schools are for feminine women or masculine men in Japan. In accordance
with the different gender-role expectations for men
and women in Japanese society, different education
was provided to men and women through gendersegregated schools before World War II. From this
historical background it is unlikely that masculine
women chose gender-segregated schools. However,
some gender-segregated schools in Japan have high
prestige with respect to competitiveness. Therefore,
it is possible that competitive girls chose the school
because of its high ranking rather than because it
was a gender-segregated school. Because the competitiveness ranking of the schools is unknown in the
present study, we cannot deny the possibility of the
self-selected effect. Future research on the effect of
school environment should include this aspect as well.
Regarding the effect of gender-segregated school
backgrounds on womens gender-related attitudes,
the results indicated that women who went to gendersegregated junior high and high school wanted to
marry at an older age and tended to disagree with the
idea of house husband. Women who had gendersegregated school backgrounds are more liberal in
terms of their own age for marriage, but more traditional in terms of their attitudes toward men taking nontraditional gender roles. Gender-segregated
school backgrounds seem to have different influences
on the attitudes toward womens own gender roles
and those toward mens.
Despite the differences in the age of the participants and the targeted gender phenomena, the
present results of the gender-segregated school effects appear to be consistent with Lawrie and Browns
findings (1992) to a certain degree; gender-segregated
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank the students who answered
the questionnaire for this study and the friends who
collected data for us. We also thank Roberta Golliher
257
and Gene Pleish for editing this paper. Our appreciation extends to the anonymous reviewers for their
constructive comments.
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