Human differentiation on the basis of gender is a fundamental phenomenon that affects virtually every aspect of people's daily lives. This article presents the social cognitive theory of gender role development and functioning. It specifies how gender conceptions are constructed from the complex mix of experiences and how they operate in concert with motivational and self-regulatory mechanisms to guide gender-linked conduct throughout the life course. The theory integrates psychological and sociostructural determinants within a unified conceptual structure. In this theoretical perspective, gender conceptions and roles are the product of a broad network of social influences operating interdependently in a variety of societal subsystems. Human evolution provides bodily structures and biological potentialities that permit a range of possibilities rather than dictate a fixed type of gender differentiation. People contribute to their self-development and bring about social changes that define and structure gender relationships through their agentic actions within the interrelated systems of influence.

https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Bandura/Bandura1999PR.pdf

Social cognitive theory of gender development and differentiation.

This article reviews more than 200 scholarly articles and books on household labor published between 1989 and 1999. As a maturing area of study, this body of research has been concerned with understanding and documenting how housework is embedded in complex and shifting social processes relating to the well-being of families, the construction of gender, and the reproduction of society. Major theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to the study of household labor are summarized, and suggestions for further research are offered. In summary, women have reduced and men have increased slightly their hourly contributions to housework. Although men's relative contributions have increased, women still do at least twice as much routine housework as men. Consistent predictors of sharing include both women's and men's employment, earnings, gender ideology, and life-course issues. More balanced divisions of housework are associated with women perceiving fairness, experiencing less depression, and enjoying higher marital satisfaction.

Research on household labor : Modeling and measuring the social embeddedness of routine family work

This study assessed three dimensions of parent style, autonomy support, involvement, and provision of structure in 64 mothers and 50 fathers of elementary-school children in Grades 3-6, using a structured interview. Aspects of children's self-regulation and competence were measured through children's self-reports, teacher ratings, and objective indices. Results are discussed in terms of the motivational impact of the parent on school competence and adjustment and in terms of transactional models of influence

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Parent Styles Associated with Children's Self-Regulation and Competence in School.

This article presents a four-category framework to characterize the contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. The framework distinguishes between prescriptions and proscriptions that are intensi...

/pdf/what-women-and-men-should-be-shouldn-t-be-are-allowed-to-be-4xgp8hdazs.pdf

What Women and Men Should Be, Shouldn’t Be, Are Allowed to Be, and Don’t Have to Be: The Contents of Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes

The authors review studies on time use of children and adolescents around the world and discuss developmental implications of population differences. Industrialization and schooling are linked to dramatic declines in time spent on household and wage labor. This labor is often unchallenging, sometimes hazardous; developmental benefits often do not increase above a limited number of hours; hence, reduction in these activities opens time for activities that may be more developmentally beneficial. Adolescents in East Asian postindustrial societies spend this freed-up time in schoolwork, a use associated with lower intrinsic motivation but high achievement and economic productivity. Adolescents in North America spend more time in leisure, associated with greater self-direction but of an uncertain relation to development. Age, gender, and socioeconomic differences in activities and with whom time is spent are also considered. Language: en

How children and adolescents spend time across the world: work, play, and developmental opportunities.

Mother-child and father-child relationships in middle childhood and adolescence: A developmental analysis

RUSSELL, GRAEME, and RUSSELL, ALAN. Mother-Child and Father-Child Relationships in Middle Childhood. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1987, 58, 1573-1585. This article reports a combined interview and observation study of parent-child relationships in families with an eldest child aged 6-7 years (N = 57). Interview data focused on time spent with children, performance of child-need tasks, and frequency of parent-child interactions. Parent and child behaviors during a 1'/2-hour home observation were coded into 20 categories, and ratings were made of affective reactions to these behaviors. Analyses revealed that mothers interacted with their children more, were more directive, and were more involved in caregiving, whereas fathers' interactions occurred more frequently in the context of play. Mothers, however, were not found to be more responsive to their children, and fathers were not more negative or restrictive. Significant interactions were not found between sex of parent and sex of child. Implications are examined for theoretical analyses of mother/father differences, generalizations from observational data, and for multimethod approaches.

Mother-Child and Father-Child Relationships in Middle Childhood

The development of two 50-item parallel forms of an Australian sex-role scale is described. A total of 2,427 subjects rated 512 adjectives in terms of their desirability for Australian males and females, the degree to which they are expected in Australian males and females, and their self-applicability. These ratings were used to construct the two scales — Personal Description Questionnaire Forms A and B. Each scale comprises 10 masculine positive, 10 masculine negative, 10 feminine positive, 10 feminine negative, and 10 social desirability items. The new scales were administered to 282 (144 male, 138 female) high-school students for self-description, and the various psychometric characteristics of the scales and norms for these samples are presented. It is recommended that Australian sex-role researchers use these new scales in preference to past scales based on American college students. As with any new scales there is a need for further normative data to be gathered and a variety of validation...

An Australian sex‐role scale

The aim of this prospective study involving 39 women and 32 partners was to investigate the grief response of both the woman and her partner to miscarriage and to ascertain if support received was adequate and appropriate to their needs. Previous research shows that partners' grief can often be delayed and chronic. Special emphasis is placed on this area in this study. The miscarriage was found to be a significant event and the majority of women and partners still experienced feelings of loss up to 4 months afterwards, describing their reactions as sad or very sad. Scores on the first administration of the Perinatal Grief Scale showed that, in contrast with previous findings, partners scored significantly higher than the women on the three subscales and overall. Partners' scores on the second administration were also higher than those for the women but the difference was not significant. The women tended to receive and welcome social support more than the partners. Support received from health professionals was not always optimal, particularly for partners. Pregnancy subsequent to miscarriage was often viewed with some anxiety. It is argued that the results of the study have important implications for health practice.

Couples' grief and experience of support in the aftermath of miscarriage

RUSSELL, GRAEME. The Father Role and Its Relation to Masculinity, Femininity, and Androgyny. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 1174-1181. Despite the current interest in the role the father plays in child development, little study has been made of either the determinants or the range and diversity of father behavior. This paper focuses on the father role and, among other things, reports on an investigation of divisions of labor in child care and the relationship between these divisions and the masculinity, femininity, and androgyny of mothers and fathers. The subject sample, which includes a wide cross-section in terms of education, occupation, residence, and family type, was recruited from shopping centers. Information on divisions of labor was obtained from a joint interview with mothers and fathers, and sex role was assessed using the Bem SexRole Inventory. Fathers classified as androgynous were found to be more involved in day-to-day care activities and play than those classified as masculine. No relationship was found between mothers' child care behavior and sex role. However, fathers classified as masculine, married to women who were androgynous or masculine, were found to be more involved than masculine fathers married to feminine women. These and other findings on the roles of mothers and fathers are discussed in terms of their implications for research on the relationship between androgyny and behavioral flexibility and on the roles of mothers and fathers in child development.

Graeme Russell

Papers

Mother-child and father-child relationships in middle childhood and adolescence: A developmental analysis

Mother-Child and Father-Child Relationships in Middle Childhood

An Australian sex‐role scale

Couples' grief and experience of support in the aftermath of miscarriage

The Father Role and Its Relation to Masculinity, Femininity, and Androgyny.