A Study on Cognition Patterns of Gender Roles in the Family

Abstract

　　The purpose of this study was to investigate junior college students' cognition pattens concerning gender roles in social contexts and family situations. Based on their cognition pattens junior college students have been divided into the following 4 groups: Traditional-Rigid type (TR), Traditional-Flexible type (TF), Nontraditional-Rigid type (NR), and Nontraditoinal-Flexible type (NF).

　　Hypotheses in this study were as follows: (1) NF-students recognize more information concerning gender roles than TR-students do, (2) NF-students have more knowledge about the roles of women and men in social situations than TR-students do, and (3) NF-students have more experiences of household sharing in their family than TR-students do.

　　48 junior college students were investigated using a questionnaire which this author made. It included measures of awareness of gender roles, knowledge of terms related to gender roles and social role-taking of women and men, and role-taking in the family, feeling within the traditional gender roles, sensitivity to topics regarding gender in mass communication, and household sharing in the subjects'own family.

　　The remarkable results are as follows.

　　1. NF-students feel more uncomfortable when they receive information concerning traditional gender roles than TR-students. Moreover, NF-students often try to reduce their discomfort by collecting more information about gender roles.

　　2. NF-students have more knowledge about women and men social situations than TR-students. But in general, many students still lack sufficient knowledge.

　　3. In the NF-students’ family, the children and fathers have more experiences of household sharing than in the TR-students'. role-sharing in household is more flexible in the NF-students' family than in the TR-students'.