Sex-role preferences in four age levels

Brown's (1956a; 1956b) influential finding that girls of all ages exhibit masculine rather than feminine sex-role preferences has been challenged by the argument that the scale used in his studies—the It Scale for Children (ITSC)—is masculine biased. The present investigation reexamined this issue with an instrument designed to be free of the limitations inherent in the ITSC. Boys and girls from grades 2, 5, 8, and 11 examined drawings of activities scaled for sex-role stereotypy and selected those activities they would like to engage in. Consistent with Brown's earlier work, boys exhibited strong masculine preferences at all ages. Contrary to Brown, however, girls did not show similar masculine preferences. Instead, their choices reflected strong feminine preferences throughout the spectrum of ages tested.