Date of Award

1985

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Psychology

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Paul Florin

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether five one-hour consciousness-raising sessions could alter inner-city fifth-graders' scores on a measure of sex role stereotyping. Three groups, comprised of twenty-two (22) children each, were given the Maferr Inventory of Feminine Values and a short question asking the approximate amount of television watched every week in both the pre- and post-tests conditions. The children were randomly assigned to either of the following three groups: (1) Consciousness-raising ·group emphasizing sex role stereotyping, (2) Consciousness-raising group emphasizing viewing less television for illogical reasons, and (3) A control group receiving no consciousness-raising intervention. The purpose of the second group was to discover if children would show change on measures regardless of the topic's logic. A matched t-test demonstrated that the children did not significantly change the amount of television that they viewed each week. At-test was performed on all of the original pre-test data indicating that boys will initially report more traditional sex role values than girls. A 3x2 factorial analysis of variance with repeated measures was performed indicating that there was a significant interaction effect between group and intervention. A simple main effects test illustrated that the significant interaction was occurring with the sex role consciousness-raising group and their intervention; however, the significant change within this group was contrary to the predicted more liberal direction. The experimenter posits possible explanations for this finding.

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