Issues Unresolved: New Perspectives on Language and Deaf Education

19. Development of Deaf and Hearing Children's Sex-Role Attitudes and Self-Endorsements

Development of Deaf and Hearing Children's Sex-Role Attitudes and Self-Endorsements Corinne J. Lewkowicz and Lynn S. Liben 19 RESEARCH WITH deaf adults indicates that they are at a disadvantage in comparison with their hearing peers, both in terms of level of education achieved and occupational status attained. Marschark (1993a), in a review of research on educational achievement by deaf students, confirmed that, despite recent gains on standardized tests of academic achievement, the overall performance of deaf students continues to lag behind that of their hearing peers. Marschark stated that researchers have offered several possible reasons for this disparity both intraindividual (e.g., age of language acquisition, ability to attend to classroom instructions, and achievement motivation) and interindividual (e.g., parental involvement in educational curricula, success in teacherchild communication, and poorly defined educational goals). This disparity continues into adulthood, where there are differences between deaf and hearing adults in postsecondary educational level attained, unemployment status, level of occupational prestige, and socioeconomic status . MacLeod-Gallinger (1992) noted that, while these differences are diminishing for deaf men, deaf women continue to be at a disadvantage in comparison with hearing women. Further, although deaf men and women generally attain comparable levels of postsecondary education, they tend to undertake traditionally gender-appropriate areas of stud)', which has subsequent effects on employment. For example, deaf men are more likely to enroll in programs leading to degrees in engineering technologies, whereas deaf women are more likely to enroll in business and office programs, leadPortions of this paper were presented at the 18th International Congress on the Education of the Deaf, July 1995, Tel Aviv, Israel. This research was completed in partial fulfillment of a Ph.D. degree in developmental psychology at the Pennsylvania State University by the first author under the supervision of the second author. An American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award, a Pennsylvania State University Graduate School Special Dissertation Award, and the Trumbo and Carolyn Sherif Memorial Funds (Psychology Department, the Pennsylvania State University) supported this research. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Kathy Branagan, Polly MacFadden, and Roz McCall in data collection and developmental psychology graduate students at the Pennsylvania State University in data entry. We also gratefully acknowledge the administrators, staff, and teachers of the participating schools, as well as the children and parents who completed the measures. 215 216 CORINNE J. LEWKOWICZ AND LYNN S. LIBEN ing to employment in clerical occupations. Deaf women are also persistently unemployed compared to deaf men and, when they are employed, tend to self-segregate into gender-traditional occupations. MacLeod-Gallinger, as well as others (e.g., Egelston-Dodd 1977; Egelston and Kovolchuk 1975), argued that these differences exist primarily for two reasons-both internally and externally imposed: stereotyping on the basis of hearing status and stereotyping on the basis of gender. MacLeodGallinger offered several possible reasons for the heightened level of gend.er segregation by deaf individuals: (1) reinforcement by the Deaf culture of traditional conceptions of gender, and limited exposure to deaf role models engaging in gender-nonstereotyped occupations; (2) educational curricula that does not provide adequate exposure to career opportunities in nontraditional areas, particularly the sciences; (3) guidance programs in schools for deaf students that are more likely to suggest traditionally genclerappropriate careers; and (4) limited effects of hearing parents on their deaf children's career aspirations due to communication difficulties. MacLeodGallinger concluded that, in addition to broadened educational curricula to (leal with these difficulties, specific educational curricula must be implernented that counters the effects of gender stereotypes that deaf men and women have internalized. Little is known, however, about the process through which deaf men and women become highly gender stereotyped. Some research has examined gender stereotyping in deaf adults, particularly in comparison with their hearing peers (Kolvitz and Ouellette 1980; Anderson and Krueger 1982). In ~~eneral, it indicated that deaf men and women are more stereotyped than their hearing peers, and are more likely to select traditional educational curricula . Therefore, a need exists to examine the development of gender stereotyping in young deaf children, to determine if they are also more stereotyped with regard to gender than their hearing peers, and to determine the f~os­ sible sources of these stereotypes. Once these sources are more clearly understood , it becomes possible to discuss how and what educational curricula can be developed to help offset the detrimental effects of a heightened level of gender stereotyping. Consequently; this investigation examined the development of sex-role stereotypes in deaf children, particularly...