Effect of gender composition of school on body concerns in adolescent women
1School of Psychology, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.
Objective:
This study aimed to investigate the role of gender composition of school on body figure preferences, eating disorder symptomology, and role concerns.
Method:
Questionnaires were completed by 261 Australian adolescent girls in two private single-sex and two private coeducational school environments.
Results:
There was no difference in nominated ideal figure or eating disorder scores between the schools. However, girls in the single-sex schools placed a greater emphasis on achievement than their counterparts at the coeducational schools. These role concerns had a differential impact on prediction of the ideal figure, whereby the importance placed on intelligence and professional success predicted the choice of a thinner ideal figure for the single-sex schools, but a larger ideal for the coeducational schools.
Discussion:
It was concluded that the motivation for thinness differs between single-sex and coeducational schools.
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