Gender Specific Activities And Its Relationship With The Self Concept Of Adolescents

Abstract

The research was designed to study the Gender related activities i.e. those activities which are stereotypically related to girls and boys and their relationship with the self concept of adolescents. The data was collected from a sample of Adolescents girls and boys between age ranging from (16-20) years belonging to same family. Total number of families included for the data collection was 50. (i.e. Adolescents = 100) An Activity Scale by Terry Honess (1994) was used to see what kind of activities girls and boys are allowed/ accepted to perform. The activity scale had three types of activities, activities and tasks that are considered as male oriented, secondly female oriented and those which are neutral (both male and female are accepted to perform). In order to measure self concept of male and female adolescents the self concept scale (Urdu Adjective Checklist UACL; Ansari et.al. 1982) was used. Results indicated that boys and girls perform gender specific activities. The self concept of girls was significantly low on self concept scale as compared to the boys. Out of nine dimensions of the self concept scale Adolescents’ boys score significantly high on Aggression, Autonomy, Affiliation and Dominance. On the other hand females scored higher on Succorance and Abasement dimensions. These findings show cultural stereotypes in different walks of life. It also reveals that the self concept has a strong relationship with the freedom of movement and expression of young boys and girls. Results are discussed and conclusions are drawn keeping in perspective the cultural expectations and stereo types and its impact on the self concept of young boys and girls.