Ethnicity, Acculturation, and Religiosity as Predictors of Female College Students' Role Expectations

DOI: 10.1007/s11199-005-5681-7Sex Roles, Vol. 53, Nos. 3/4, August 2005 ( C 2005)Ethnicity, Acculturation, and Religiosity as Predictors

of Female College Students Role ExpectationsEsther Bang,1 M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall,1,3 Tamara L. Anderson,1

and Michele M. Willingham2The present study was designed to examine ethnicity, acculturation, and religiosity as predictors of European American and Korean American evangelical female college students role

expectations. Fifty-seven European American and 37 Korean American single women, who

ranged in age from 17 to 24 years, completed a demographic questionnaire, a role expectation measure, three religiosity measures, and an acculturation measure. The results indicated

a significant negative correlation between fundamentalism and role-sharing expectations for

European American women and a significant positive correlation between level of acculturation and role-sharing expectations for Korean American women. The results suggest that

fundamentalism is a stronger predictor of role expectations than religious commitment in

European American women and that acculturation is a more accurate predictor of role expectations than generation in the United States among Korean American women.KEY WORDS: gender roles; acculturation; religiosity; ethnicity.Gender roles are socially constructed; therefore, standards and expectations of gender roles differ from culture to culture. Cultural forces operate

among ethnic groups as well as within smaller subcultures/groups to generate particular norms and gender

role expectations. Moreover, in a multiethnic culture

such as the United States, variations within ethnic

groups exist due to immigrants level of acculturation. Thus, gender roles are influenced by multiple

sources across culture and time, and they cannot be

understood outside the context of particular ethnicities, societies, and social settings (Ferdman, 1999).Researchers have considered various predictors of gender role expectations. Among the examined variables (i.e., race, ethnicity, education, family income, fathers education, mothers education

and employment status, length of mothers employment, region of the country, and degree of reli-1Biola University, La Mirada, California.2Hope International University, California.3To whom correspondence should be addressed at Rosemead

School of Psychology, Biola University, La Mirada, California

90639; e-mail: [e-mail]), mothers work history (Bridges & Etaugh,

1996; Tsuzuki & Matsui, 1997; Willetts-Bloom &

Nock, 1994), religiosity (Etaugh, 1989; Morgan,

1987; Willetts-Bloom & Nock, 1994), and ethnicity

(Bridges & Etaugh, 1996; Etaugh, 1989) have been

shown to be strong predictors of college students expectation of their own marital and maternal roles,

particularly in relation to employment.The significant findings...