Family context and gender role socialization in middle childhood: Comparing girls to boys and sisters to brothers

We studied the extent of sex-typing across different areas of child functio ning (personality, interests, activities) in middle childhood as a function of the traditionality of parents' gender role attitudes and the sex compos ition of the sibling dyad. Participants included 200 firstborn children (me an = 10.4 years old), their secondborn siblings (mean = 7.7 years old) and their mothers and fathers. Family members were interviewed in their homes a bout their attitudes and personal characteristics and completed a series of seven evening telephone interviews about their daily activities. We measur ed children's attitudes, personality characteristics, and interests in sex- typed leisure activities (e.g., sports, handicrafts) as well as time spent in sex-typed leisure activities and household tasks (e.g., washing dishes, home repairs) and with same and opposite sex companions (i.e., parents, pee rs). Analyses revealed that sex-typing was most evident in children's inter ests and activities. Further, comparisons of girls versus boys and sisters versus brothers revealed that differences in children's sex-typing as a fun ction of fathers' attitudes and sibling sex constellation were most apparen t for children's activities. A notable exception was sex-typed peer involve ment; time spent with same versus opposite sex peers was impervious to cont ext effects. Analyses focused on children's sex-typing as a function of mot hers' attitudes generally were nonsignificant.