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The study measured sex-role standards about achievement in the areas of athletic, spatial and mechanical, arithmetic, reading, artistic, and social skills. Subjects were 120 boys and girls from second, sixth, and twelfth grades. The total sample rated the areas from most feminine to most masculine in the following order: social, artistic, reading, arithmetic, spatial and mechanical, and athletic. In general, older subjects made more extreme ratings: Twelfth graders considered athletic and arithmetic skills more masculine and reading and social skills more feminine than younger children. There was an overall tendency for girls to make more feminine ratings than boys, especially on athletic and reading skills, but sex differences decreased with age. Significant Age X Sex interactions in some achievement areas suggested that the change in sex-role standards between second and twelfth grade is primarily concerned with learning what is inappropriate for one's sex rather than what is appropriate.The study described in this paper is the second in a series of investigations of children's sex-role standards about six areas of achievement: athletic, spatial and mechanical, arithmetic, reading, artistic, and social skills. The term "sex-role standard" was proposed by Kagan (1964) to represent an individual's conception of the behaviors and attributes which are appropriate to each sex. Such standards are distinguished from "sexrole identity" or the degree to which an individual considers himself to possess sextyped traits. A large body of literature indicates consistent sex differences in performance in the achievement areas under study. Girls typically perform better on reading, verbal fluency, and artistic tasks, while boys perform better on spatial and 1 The authors wish to thank the faculty and staff of Ithaca High School and South Hill Elementary School for their cooperation in the conduct of the study and to express appreciation to Susan Jossum for her help in collecting data.

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The major hypothesis of the study was that children's sex-role standards for six achievement areas, mechanical, athletic, math, reading, artistic, and social skills, are related to their attainment values, expectancies, and standards of performance in these areas. Subjects were 235 sixth and ninth graders divided into two socioeconomic status (SES) groups. The major hypothesis was supported. Further, as predicted, ninth graders' attainment values were more influenced by sex typing than sixth graders, and expectancies and standards of lower SES subjects were more influenced by sex typing than those of higher SES subjects. There were no age or SES differences in sexrole standards, but individual differences in sex-role standards were correlated with motivation scores. Sex-role preferences were not related to the pattern of motivation scores.