Attitudes toward women's roles in society: A replication after 20 years

In many parts of the world, attitudes toward women's roles in society have been changing over the past several decades due to changes in laws regardin g women and educational systems among other significant factors The present study provides a 20-year replication, using the full version of Spence and Helmreich's (1972) well-known Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS) with samp les of mainly white undergraduates including nursing undergraduates at West ern Canadian universities in the mid-1970s and mid-1990s. Results based upo n the full and subscale scores show a significant liberalization in attitud es for both genders since the mid-1970s and a narrowing of the gender gap i n the 1990s. Finally, the utility of the AWS after some 20-odd years is cha llenged.