Barbara J. Bank

Comparative Research on the Social Determinants of Adolescent Drinking

Previous research concerned with social influence and with adolescent behaviors has suggested the utility of distinctions between modeling and normative influence, parental and peer influence, instrumentality and internalization, internalization through own norms versus preferences, and among cultural contexts. Most studies investigate the effects of variables derived from only one or a few of these distinctions. In this study, interviews conducted in Australia, France, Norway, and the United States provide data to examine the utility of these distinctions for the prediction of alcohol use by adolescents. As predicted, internalization rather than instrumentality is the reason for effective social influence in all four countries, and internalized effects occur by means of preferences rather than own norms. Both peer modeling and peer norms have significant, internalized effects on adolescent drinking in allfour countries, and parental modeling has significant, internalized effects on adolescent drinking in Australia and France, but not in Norway and the United States. Contrary to predictions, parental norms are related to adolescent drinking in Australia and the United States, but not in France and Norway. Reasons for these findings and their implications for studies of social influence and adolescent behavior are discussed.

Sex Roles, Classroom Instruction, and Reading Achievement.

University of Missouri—Columbia Boys learn to read more slowly than girls in American schools, and for some years American educators have been concerned about this fact and the problems it poses. Several explanations have been advanced for sex differences in reading achievement, including hypotheses based on physical maturation, female teacher bias, teacher discrimination, feminization of reading, differential response to pupil behaviors, and sex-relevant teaching styles. Each of these hypotheses is conceptualized here, and evidence for and against each hypothesis is reviewed. Current evidence is found sufficient to reject only two of the hypotheses, and it is suggested that more than one of the remaining hypotheses may be needed to explain sex differences in reading achievement. Implications of the hypotheses for classroom teaching are explored. Sex is a strong predictor of human conduct, and many differences have been documented between the attitudes, behaviors, and achievements of males and females (Block, 1976; Deaux, 1976; Frieze, Parsons, Johnson, Ruble, & Zellman, 1978; Katz, Bower master, Jacobson, & Kessell, 1977; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974). Although controversy has appeared about the size, causes, and implications of these sex differences, there is no disagreement about the contention that male and female sex roles are different in many ways. Given these differences, it is not surprising that people also expect males and females to act differently. Indeed, expectations about sex roles and the evaluations of male and female performance are sometimes more disparate than the observed behaviors and achievements of the two sexes (Goldberg, 1968; Pheterson, Kiesler, & Goldberg, 1971). Such expectations are not mere curiosities. Among other things, they lead adults to socialize young boys and girls in quite different ways, thus perpetuating sex roles in the new generation. So strong is this influence that differences have been detected in the play behavior of 1-year-old boys and girls (Goldberg & Lewis, 1969), and substantial differences appear in Requests for reprints should be sent to Barbara J. Bank, Center for Research in Social Behavior, 111 East Stewart Road, Columbia, Missouri 65211.

FRIENDSHIPS IN AUSTRALIA AND THE UNITED STATES From Feminization to a More Heroic Image

Cultural critics of the “feminization of love” have argued that heterosexual love has been feminized by a stress on emotional expressivity that masks “masculine” love, with its greater emphasis on instrumental behaviors. Using survey data, this article examines the extent to which the feminization-of-love hypothesis can be extended to same-sex friendships. Data analyses revealed that womens friendships were more expressive than mens only when a narrow, positive definition of expressivity was employed; mens friendships were found to be more aggressive, but no more instrumental, than those of women. These and other findings support the conclusion that womens friendships are more similar to the cultural images of heroic friendship and sisterhood than to the narrower image of feminized love.

Modality of Thought, Campus Experiences, and the Development of Values.

This study measured values with scales composed of items worded in normative, preferential, and self-descriptive modes. Values, background variables, academic majors, and campus experiences were examined in a panel study conducted with university students

Adolescent socialization in cross-cultural perspective : planning for social change

Adolescent socialization in cross-cultur prespective : Planning for social change , Adolescent socialization in cross-cultur prespective : Planning for social change , کتابخانه مرکزی دانشگاه علوم پزشکی ایران

Parents, Friends, Siblings, and Adults: Unfolding Referent Other Importance Data for Adolescents

Abstract Few studies have yet examined the importance of referent others. One reason for avoiding this topic may be ignorance of appropriate methods for analyzing data. This paper reports two comparative studies of referent others for adolescents. (One study compared four Western countries, the other a Western country with the major ethnic groups in Malaysia.) Data were analyzed by means of the unfolding method. Adolescents were found to rank parents first in importance, followed by friends, adults, and then siblings. Parents were perceived as less similar to friends than they were to siblings or adults. Rankings of referent others varied more by question content than by nationality. Techniques and advantages of the unfolding method are spelled out.

Gendered accounts: Undergraduates explain why they seek their bachelor's degree

Data from a four-year longitudinal study of undergraduates were used to determine whether males and females give different explanations for their decisions to seek bachelors degrees and whether these differences could be explained by three mediating variables: performance levels, expectations, and attainment values. Females were found to give more importance to internal reasons than males did, but males gave higher ratings to items measuring academic drift, including luck. Females had higher academic performance levels than males, but no gender differences were found for expectations and attainment values, and performance levels did not explain gender differences in reasons for seeking the degree. An historic shift in gender ideology is proposed as an explanation for the findings.

Peer Cultures and Their Challenge for Teaching

In recent years, the term peer group has increasingly been replaced by the term peer culture. This chapter begins with a discussion of these two terms and the likely reasons for this change. Next, a typology of peer cultures is presented based on three different ways in which these culture can be created. The presentation of this typology is followed by a discussion of the diversity among peer cultures generated by background characteristics of peers such as social class, gender, age, and race-ethnicity. The chapter then assesses the claims that peer cultures of children and adolescents frequently conflict with teachers’ goals and the official school culture that encompasses these goals. While not rejecting these claims, I argue that they are based on simplifying assumptions that ignore tensions and contradictions within official school cultures. In particular, I argue that it is useful to separate three strands of official school culture — academic goals, extracurricular activities, and school rules about deportment — and to show how each affects and is affected by the peer cultures students construct for themselves. Next, the influence of peer cultures on students’ opinions and behaviours is assessed directly in a section of the chapter that reviews the literature concerned with the nature and strength of peer influence. The final section of the chapter assesses the implications of peer cultures for teaching by examining what school staffs have done and might do to affect peer group processes at different levels of schooling.

Sex Segregation and Tokenism among Teachers

at the elementary and secondary school levels are women. That this was not always the case has been widely documented by historians and other social scientists who use the term feminization of teaching to describe the process of change that occurred in the nineteenth century as the majority of men teachers became a minority, and women assumed the overwhelming majority of teaching positions throughout the United States. Before this happened, patterns of sex segregation varied across the nation from rural to urban areas, from summer to winter, and from region to region (Perlmann & Margo, 2001). At the start of the Civil War in 1861, and for many decades prior to that, far higher proportions of women teachers were employed in the Northeast than in the South. Although regional differences persisted into the twentieth century, by the start of that century, women constituted the majority of teachers in all regions of the country and, by 1910, they were the majority in every state. Although United States census figures reveal some fluctuations in the size of this majority during the twentieth century, the proportion of teachers who were women in 1900 (74.0%) was about the same as the proportion who were women in 2000 (75.5%), the most recent year for which full census data are available. Although census data are not disaggregated by grade level and sex, some states provide that information, and those that do show that, although women predominate at all grade levels of teaching, their proportional representation is highest in elementary schools. In the state of New York, for example, 89% of elementary and 71% of secondary teachers were female in 2002–2003. In many other states, the proportion of elementary school teachers who are women is over 90% while the percentage of women among high school teachers dips below 60%. National data by subject matter are also hard to find, but most studies of state or local school districts indicate that men and women are unevenly distributed across subject matter teaching assignments with women dominating in literature and the humanities and men in mathematics and the physical sciences. The overall feminization of teaching also occurred in the nineteenth century in Britain, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but it was not until the first half of the twentieth century that a feminized teaching profession emerged in the Catholic countries in Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In some of these countries, as in the English-speaking countries, this feminization SEX SEGREGATION AND TOKENISM AMONG TEACHERS