Alexa A. Albert’s research while affiliated with University of Rhode Island and other places

This study investigates sociologically the predictions of the cognitive developmental, the social learning, and the interactive models of gender-role development. We examine the effect of a variety of variables on gender-role stereotyping among a sample of 1264 four-, five-, and six-year-old children enrolled in preschool programs in a major metropolitan area. Age, sex, and race are found to be significantly related to children's gender stereotypes. With age, children increasingly associate stereotypical behavior patterns with the male and female gender roles. Children are also found to demonstrate a higher degree of gender-role stereotyping with regard to members of their own sex. An age/sex interaction effect indicates that the tendency of children to demonstrate a higher degree of same-sex stereotyping is most pronounced among four-year-olds. Finally, black children are found to be less gender-typed in their images of males and females than are white children. These data suggest that the interactive model, including both social and cognitive factors, is the best explanation of these data and should be further investigated.

Gender trait and gender role stereotypes of 759 U.S. and 452 South African children are compared. The effects of age, sex, socioreligious background, and mother's employment status are also examined both between and within country. South African children are found to sex-type the male role to a greater extent than their U.S. counterparts, although country does not affect children's images of the female gender role. An age/ sex interaction effect is observed both between and within country. Gender role stereotypes increase with age and children are more likely to sex-type same-sex figures. Within South Africa, children from liberal Christian and Jewish backgrounds have less rigid conceptions of the male and the female gender role than do conservative Christian children. Socioreligious background does not affect children's gender role attitudes in the United States. Mother's employment status is unrelated to children's sex-typing scores in both countries.

This study examined the effect of the positive/negative quality of a gender-role stereotype on the age at which very young children are willing to associate the behavior with a member of a particular sex. The results indicate that, in comparison to 5- and 6-year olds, 4-year-old children are reluctant (1) to associate positive gender-role stereotypes with opposite-sex figures as well as (2) to accept negative stereotypes as characteristic of their own sex. In addition, a majority of the children in the sample associated with their own sex the gender-role stereotypes that are highly valued in the preschool and the school environment.

As a test of the assimilationist versus the subcultural hypotheses concerning the persistence of religious value differences in modern industrial societies, the relationship between religious orientations and attitudes toward several dimensions of women's role is investigated among a sample of white, urban, middle-class women in South Africa and the United States. Utilizing Goodman loglinear analysis, the results indicate support for the subcultural position. Religious differences exert an effect of relatively large magnitude either directly or in combination with other variables on sex-role attitudes. The data suggest, however, that although specific types of religious orientations persist and are similar in both societies, religious subcultures are affected by the secular value system of the country in which they are located.