Abstract

CAMPOS, Maria Machado Malta  and  ESPOSITO, Yara Lúcia. Mother's expectations about future occupations and educational attainment of boys and girls. Cad. Pesqui. [online]. 1975, n.15, pp.37-46. ISSN 0100-1574.

In this study an attempt was made to explore the variations in mother's expectations of boy's and girl's future occupations and educational attainment in three different social groups. There wereone higher middle class group and one working class groupfrom São Paulo and another very poor group living in a "favela" town near Brasília. Each was composed of 90 mothers of pre-school children, half of them answering about girls and the other half about boys. In all three groups it was found that both educational and occupational expectations were higher for boys than for girls. Sex differences in the middle class group were smaller than in the other groups, that is, a more rigid pattern of sex role expectations was found in the lower class groups. Occupations mentioned by mother were also classified in "masculine" and "feminine" categories. In all three groups very few boys were expected to have "feminine" jobs. But on the girls side it was found a greater variation, specially in the middle class group. This seems to indicate that in this case the sex role stereotype is more rigid for boys than for girls.

Keywords : Mães; Sexo; Crianças.

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