Sexual Stratification and Sex-Role Socialization

Data on sex-role values of a sample of college women are examined to ascertain the effect of family structure, social class, and religion on sex-role values, and to support a structural theory of sex-role socialization. Patterns of dominance are found to be crucial within the family, and they act as an intervening variable between mother's education and work history, on the one hand, and sex-role values of the daughters, on the other. The relative occupational and educational resources of father and mother affect their power within the family. Sex-role values also are affected by social class, which defines options available to women and influences parental dominance. Religious background exerts an independent, but unexplained, effect.