Analysis of the gender role in primary school students in Xiamen / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To understand the distribution of masculine and feminine traits and gender roles in primary school students who did not enter the Tanner Ⅱ stage in Xiamen and to provide a reference for promoting the development of mental and physical health of children.@*Methods@#The present study was based on the blood pressure cohort of children in Xiamen. All 823 participants were from grade two, three, four of primary school. Participants were asked to obtain children’s masculine and feminine traits, gender role types (masculine, feminine, androgynous, undifferentiated) and heterogeneity through the Children’s Sex Role Inventory. In this study, non-parametric tests and chi-square tests were used to compare the differences of masculine and feminine traits, gender role types and heterogeneity rates between different groups.@*Results@#The masculine traits of this study scored (2.80±0.52), and the feminine traits scored (2.95±0.55). The proportion of masculine, feminine, androgynous and undifferentiated was 12.8%, 11.9%, 39.1% and 36.2%, respectively. The proportion of undifferentiated among boys (41.8%) was higher than girls (31.5%), while the proportion of androgynous (34.6%) was lower than girls (43.0%), the differences were of statistical sigificance(χ2=9.22, 6.02, P<0.05). The rate of gender role heterogeneity was 7.0%, and there was no significant difference between different gender and age groups(P>0.05).@*Conclusion@#The gender roles of primary school students in Xiamen are mainly androgynous and undifferentiated, and the distribution of gender role is different in boys and girls. More specifically, the gender roles of boys were mainly undifferentiated, and girls were mainly androgynous. In general, the proportion of gender role heterosexuals is a little higher, which should be paid more attention and appropriate guidance by schools and parents.