Televised Occupational Stereotypes and Their Effects on Early Adolescents: Are They Changing?

By the mid 1980s, prime time television contained frequent portrayals of females in traditionally male occupations such as lawyer, police officer, and private detective. To determine whether young people's gender schemas about such occupations have been affected by these portrayals, fifth and sixth grade students were questioned about stereotypically feminine and masculine occupations they encounter frequently in real life, occupations often shown on television, and those infrequently encountered in real life or on television. The masculine "television" occupations were those in which females were frequently portrayed in the mid-1980s. Children knew more about the "real life" and "television" occupations than about the remaining jobs, confirming the prediction that television serves as a source of occupational information. Television occupations were regarded as more extremely sex stereotyped than real life occupations, and students had more negative attitudes about males participating in televised feminine occupations than in real life feminine occupations. The results for girls supported the hypothesis that gender schemas have changed for televised "masculine" occupations. Girls expressed positive attitudes about female participation and stated high personal interest in engaging in these occupations. Individual differences in home viewing did not predict knowledge or attitudes except that girls who expressed high aspirations for feminine television occupations (e.g. model) often watched programs showing traditional sex roles and infrequently viewed programs with nontraditional roles. This paper is based on a Senior Honors Thesis by the first author under the direction of the second author. We are grateful to the staff and students at Baldwin Grade School, Baldwin City, Kansas for participating in the study and to Rosemarie Truglio for assistance in data collection. The research was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH 39596).