The effect of social demographic factors on the perception of the genderrole: an in depth study performed on adolescents

Abstract Objective: The main focus of thestudy is to evaluate the relationship between the development of sexual conception during the puberty and the social democgraphic background, like age, place of birth, financial situation, the education level of the parents, working status, etc. Methods: To this end a study group consisting of 100 individuals aged between 12 and 17, living in Istanbul was chosen. All participants were chosen from the patients who admitted to the clinics of The Balikli Greek Hospital. To analyze the sociodemographic background of the participants, a semi structured questionaire designed by the researcher were applied to all subjects. To describe the sexual role and concepts of each individual, two exisiting measures are used: BEM Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and The Gender Roles Attitude Scale (GRAS). All statistical analysis were done using and ANOVA and two group independent t-tests. Results: A significant relationship between several sociodemographical factors and the concept of the sexuality was found in this study group. The subcategories of the Gender Roles Attitude Scale (GRAS) (egalitarian gender roles, female gender roles, marriage gender roles, traditional gender roles and male gender roles) were significantly different between different age and gender groups. The novel finding of this study is the relationship between the financial and educational situation of the parents and the concept of sexuality in their children: while children of families with low income, and low education al level are more prone to traditional view, the children from highly educated parents with a working mother and high in come tend to more egalitarian view. Similar results are obtained for the subgroups of Bem Sex Role Inventory (femininity, masculinity, and neutral) as well. iii Conclusion: Present study results clearly suggest that certain sociodemographic background of an individual significantly associated with certain aspect of her/his sexual concepts. Keywords: gender, adolescent, sex roles, puberty, equity