Gender biases of foster parent applicants: old new stereotypes?

Abstract

The process of reforming the state care system for orphans and children deprived of parental care requires research to study the gender aspects of foster parenthood, which affect the distribution of roles in the private family sphere, strategies for raising orphans and children deprived of parental care. The article covers the problem of gender stereotypes of candidates for foster parents, which determine their vision of social and psychological characteristics and expectations of women and men. The results of the study of femininity and masculinity stereotypes using the Bem Sex-Role Inventory and the assessment of ambivalent sexism in the attitudes toward women and men using a short version of the methodology of P. Glick and S. Fiske. It is established that candidates for foster parents demonstrate a greater extent of benevolent rather than hostile sexism and describe a generalized image of women and men as androgynous individuals, but almost a third of respondents' responses concerning women show high indicators on the femininity scale, and concerning men - on the masculinity scale. High levels of hostility to feminism, especially among women, have been reported. Author emphasizes the importance of introducing special training programs for candidates for foster parents in order to disseminate attitudes that correspond to contemporary views of egalitarian family patterns.