Abstract
Purpose. The role of women in American society is changing with great rapidity. Studies document that adolescents' role and career options are often influenced by the role of the culture expects of their gender and the sex-stereotypes to which they have been exposed.This study developed a twenty-four session life-planning intervention program based upon the hypotheses that individual can (1) expand their motive to achieve, (2) develop a more androgynous (less sexually stereotyped) self-perception, and (3) increase their role and career options by a combination of techniques and functions through which they can be guided by professional intervention. This intervention program was compared to (1) a job exploration program designed to provide both occupational information and simulated work experiences and (2) a no-treatment control group.Method. Seventy-eight tenth grade adolescent females from a private secondary school in Miami, Florida completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory, the Mehrabian Measure of Achieving Tendency, the Mehrabian Measure of Affiliative Tendency, and the Non Sexist Vocational Card Sort before being randomly assigned to one of the three groups. The research design was a randomized control-group pretest-posttest design.Results. The life-planning program developed for use in this study has been implemented in part in academic classes in the high school setting and used as supplemental material in group career counseling. However, no relationship of statistical significance was found to exist between participation in one of the experimental group processes and (1) the development of an androgynous sex-role identification, (2) an increase in the motive to achieve, or (3) career aspirations. Participants in the job exploration process were more affiliative than participants in the control process. They also rated more occupations as appropriate for both sexes than participants in the life-planning process.Conclusions. The measurable orientation of adolescent girls toward the variables studied in this research is very difficult to change through an intervention such as this life-planning counseling program. It cannot be concluded on the basis of these data that the sex-role identity or the need for achievement will change following an intervention of this type.