The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of sixteen structured group sessions on black high school girls' attitudes toward the rights and sex roles of women, cognitions about the "ideal" woman, and expressed interests in careers in science and engineering.;The literature indicates that individuals select and enter career fields based partly upon their perceptions that certain career areas are more appropriate for one sex than for another. The resulting phenomenon is known as "occupational sex-typing" or segregation of the sexes by occupation.;The research design for this study was a pretest-posttest control group design. The samples consisted of black girls in grades 10, 11, and 12 whose mathematics and/or science SRA Achievement scores were between the 50th and 94th percentile. Twenty subjects were assigned randomly to the experimental group and twenty to the control group.;The independent variable consisted of sixteen one-hour, weekly structured group sessions adapted from the BORN FREE training material. The dependent measures were attitudes toward the rights and roles of women, cognitions about the "ideal" woman, and expressed interests in nontraditional careers in science and engineering. Three self-report instruments, the Attitudes Toward Women Scale, the Adjective Check List, and the California Occupational Preference System were used to assess changes in the dependent variables. Behavioral changes were measured by unobtrusive observations of registration for advanced courses in mathematics and science for the 1983-1984 school year.;The results of the research revealed that the intervention had a significant impact on the following scales: ATWS, three (ACH, END, and AGG) of the seven primary scales of the ACL, and three (SIPR, SISK, and TEPR) of the four scales of the COPS. No significant impact was measured on the remaining four (SCFD, PERADJ, DOM, and AUT) scales of the ACL, on the TESK scale of the COPS, nor on the ACL scales analyzed for additional information. No behavioral change was revealed by the number of mathematics and science courses selected by the experimental group.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:wm.edu/oai:scholarworks.wm.edu:etd-1530 |
| Date | 01 January 1983 |
| Creators | Lewis, Mary Elizabeth Hubbard |
| Publisher | W&M ScholarWorks |
| Source Sets | William and Mary |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects |
| Rights | © The Author |
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