How Our Students View Gender Roles

Authors

Annette Tomal, Wheaton College

Abstract

Student views of the role of women in the family were compared with results from a National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Freshmen and seniors from an evangelical Christian college were surveyed with 498 responses. The college students were more likely to support traditional gender roles than the NSFH respondents. Freshmen (41%) were more supportive of traditional gender roles than seniors (22%). Senior females (71%) were least supportive of traditional gender roles, compared with freshman males (31%). Seniors (35%) were more likely than freshmen (24%) to approve of mothers of preschoolers working full-time. Senior females (43%) were most supportive of working mothers, compared with freshman males (20%). Almost 60% of the students lived in families with a stay-at-home mother; just over 10% of the students had full-time working mothers during their school years. About 50% of freshman females and 25% of senior females hope to be stay-at-home mothers, compared with about 60% of the male students preferring a stay-at-home wife. The paper also provides a historical and theological discussion of the changing roles of mothers in the family throughout history.

Recommended Citation

Tomal, Annette (2013) "How Our Students View Gender Roles," Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development: Vol. 12: No. 12, Article 4.
Available at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/acsd_growth/vol12/iss12/4