[The change process of sex-role attitudes in female high school students]

The present study examined how changes would occur in sex-role attitudes of female high school students. Six hundred (600) randomly sampled female high school students from a metropolitan area completed a questionnaire. Partial Order Scalogram Analysis (POSA) was conducted for three variables: complaint against sex discrimination, interest in women's independence, and attitude toward women's achievement in the public arena. POSA found two separate change routes for sex-role attitudes. In the first, the complaint process, increasing complaint against sex discrimination led to positive attitude toward women's achievement in the public arena, which in turn to heightened interest in women's independence. For the second, the interest process, heightened interest in women's independence was followed by positive attitude toward women's achievement, and then by more complaint against sex discrimination. Results also suggested not only that the complaint process was facilitated by external factors like discrimination, and that the interest process by increasing interest in self. But students in the last stage of both processes experience sex-role conflict.