The Role of Schools in Developing Sex Role Attitudes
I would like to discuss in this paper the role of schools and the educational process in transmitting and developing healthy attitudes toward sex roles. I will take the approach that in order for this to be accomplished, we must examine the behaviors and attitudes both of those who are educating and those who are being educated. My observations and data will be drawn from the environment with which I am most familiar, the American public education system, but I will also attempt to extend my remarks to include salient aspects of the educational systems of other cultures as I know them or have reports of them.
Sex Bias in Educational Testing: A Sociologist's Perspective. Research Memorandum No. 74-13.
Several criteria for assessing. bias in educational tests are presented end discussed. These criteria were developed in accordance with basic notions of fairness, equality, and expanded .life options for women. In terms of prescriptions for test , . _'.,:develdpers the criteria are: (1) tests should be constructed of items which contain either no sex references or equal sex references; (2) status of males and females within the test should be equal; (3) item content should not reinforce traditional sex stereotypes. Tests currently in 'use may be considered biased if:. (4) item content in terms of male-or female statuses or stereotypes affects the "performance of males or females differentially; (5) the test predicts differentially for males and females; (6) the test is, normed separately for males and febiales unless separate norms are used to 4 insure balance in selection; (7) the test is constructed so that female futures may be separated from male futures. (Author/RC)
Fair Test Use in Selection1
Questions of test fairness are dependent upon the specific use of the test. The use of tests with which this paper is concerned is the prediction of a specific criterion. This obviously is only one of many ways in which tests are used, but it is one of the uses which has considerable practical importance where tests are used in selection, placement, or guidance situations. Discussions of test fairness for purposes of prediction are sometimes clouded by questions regarding the etiology of test performance. In the words of Anne Anastasi (1961),