The Influence of Adolescence Gender Role Ideology on Dismissive Attitudes Toward Sexual Harassment

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Innovative Directions in Cultural Diversity

Abstract

Studies have documented the prevalence of sexual harassment in schools, which has spurred scholarship aimed at understanding the trajectory of sexual harassment across adolescence. The present study examined dismissive attitudes of sexual harassment among a sample of middle-school students (N = 1,154). Using an accelerated longitudinal design to model changes in attitudes towards sexual harassment as a function of gender-role ideology, a series of multilevel models were fit to determine whether dismissive attitudes towards sexual harassment changed from early to late adolescence. The final model indicated as masculine ideology changes, there is a corresponding increase in dismissive attitudes towards sexual harassment. Among youth who hold traditional masculine ideologies there is an associated increase in dismissive attitudes towards sexual harassment.

Authors

• Lisa De La Rue, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Dorothy L. Espelage, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Daniel Berry, Harvard University