Nonconventional family life-styles and sex typing in six-year-olds

Sex role socialization and 6-year-old children's sex-typed knowledge and behavior were compared across 5 nonconventional family types (avant garde, countercultural, conventional alternatives, communal, and changeable/troubled) (n = 154) and a conventionally married comparison sample (n = 51). The avant garde and countercultural families combined the strongest sex egalitarian beliefs, with commitment to a proactive, questioning orientation toward society, and relative stability in family life-style choice. Children in the avant garde and countercultural families also displayed non-sex-typed knowledge of objects and occupations more often than did children in the other families, but all children showed knowledge of sex-typed schemas as well. Only scattered differences were found on other measures of children's sex-typed preferences or in sex-typed behavior. The form of the family or domestic unit (single parent, married couple, unmarried couple, or commune) was not related to sex typing, and socioeconomic measures had little effect, compared to nonconventional family types. Girls had more flexible sex-typing training and displayed non-sex-typed schemas more than boys across family types, conventional and nonconventional alike.