Attitudes Towards Women Among Inner-City Seventh Graders

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore seventh-grade students’ attitudes about women. This was completed in two phases: An adapted, Attitudes About Women survey, and through student drawings. Participants were asked to, "Draw a woman doing something." Students who participated in this study were enrolled in an inner-city, upstate New York school district. The subjects were selected at random. Two hundred and fifty-three students constituted the population sampled. Group responses, using a Likert scale of, strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree, were analyzed using a standard deviation formula. The ancillary purpose of the study was to measure the attitudes of seventh grade students towards women. The most significant piece of data acquired was, when asked to complete using a written format, student responses were very liberal. Data showed women should receive equal pay for the equivalent jobs of males and the provision of childcare should be shared equally. Pictorial responses of the students still depicted women in traditional roles, e.g., secretarial, teacher, homemaker, and others. It should be noted that women were portrayed in non-traditional roles, also. The closeness in percentage of these numbers suggests that the potential exists for elimination of women in traditional roles – that perhaps gender differences will be eliminated eventually.