A Pilot Study of Mood, Gender Role and Identity in Anglo and Non-Anglo Adolescent Girls

Abstract

This pilot study compared indicators of mood, gender role beliefs and ego identity development in a group of 44 Year 10 first generation non-Anglo adolescent female migrants with 50 equivalent age students from Anglo-Australian backgrounds in Melbourne, Australia. The Adolescent Depression Scale [W.M. Reynolds (1987) Reynold's Adolescent Depression Scale Professional Manual (Odessa, FL, Psychological Assessment Resources)], the Gender Role Satisfaction Scale [R. Bowen (1982) The development of attitudes to gender roles among adolescent females, unpublished BA thesis, University of Melbourne] and a specially constructed Identity Concerns Scale based on work by Cote [(1986) Identity crisis modality: a technique for assessing the structure of an identity crisis , Journal of Adolescence , 9, pp. 321-335] were administered during health education sessions at two secondary schools. Adolescent females from non-Anglo cultures reported significantly more concerns about their identity than their Anglo-Australian peers. In particular, the former expressed the greater concerns with finding a job, determining their attitudes toward religion and fitting in to Australian society. Hypotheses that adolescents from a migrant background experienced greater depressed mood and gender role dissatisfaction than Anglo-Australian peers were not supported. The study highlights the need for counsellors to have some understanding of ethnic issues and the pressures that impinge on adolescent migrant females in contemporary Australian society.