The Power of Peers? Early Adolescent Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Gender Role Attitudes in Belgium

Gender role attitudes, or one’s beliefs about the appropriate roles for men and women, inform important life decisions such as educational and career decisions. As gender role attitudes are dynamic and change over time, it is important to understand how they are constructed and evolve over time. One of the crucial—but under researched—life phases in the development of gender role attitudes is early adolescence, a life stage wherein early educational and career exploration are key. This study examines the development of adolescent’s gender role attitudes. We use multilevel latent growth analysis techniques to estimate the change in gender role attitudes during the first 2 years of junior high school (Nstudents = 4063; Nschools = 57; average 12 to 14-years old) and its relation to how adolescents perceive themselves as gendered actors (gender typicality) and how they perceive their peer environment (friend group composition, peer pressure, gender conformity pressure). The analysis indicates that while friend group composition and peer pressure are important in shaping gender role attitudes at the beginning of junior high school, they do not continue to influence boys’ or girls’ gender role attitudes during the first 2 years of junior high school. An important finding is that pressure to conform to gender norms rather than generic peer pressure shape adolescent gender role attitudes. The study highlights the complicated process through which attitudes about gender are constructed during adolescence.