Correlates of religious affiliation, religiosity and gender role attitudes among Lebanese Christian and Muslim college students

Abstract

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine gender role attitudes between Christian and Muslim college students towards 11 most heatedly debated cliches in Lebanon that concern equal access of men and women to political and social spheres including employment.Design/methodology/approach – A three‐way MANOVA (gender by religion by class) was conducted on gender role items. Correlation of religiosity were performed between Christian and Muslim college students to explore associations between religiosity and gender role attitudes among respondents.Findings – Main effects were found among respondents, with females consistently holding less gendered attitudes than males; hence attesting to the universality of gender role attitudinal differences. The gender by religion interaction showed that Christian respondents and Muslim females documented less “traditionally demarcated” gender roles in social and public domains than Muslim males. Furthermore, class appeared to be a weak predictor of gender beliefs compar...