Sex Roles, Vol. 10, Nos. 7/8, 1984 Cultural Variations in Sex-Typing 1 Susan A. Basow Lafayette College The sex-typing of 581 Fifi secondary school and 240 university students was measured using the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PA Q). Same-sex-typing is less marked in Fifi than in the United States, and there are no differences be- tween the sexes in sex-typing patterns. Minor ethnic group variations among Fifi students occur. University students, especially females, are more similar to their United States counterparts than are secondary school students. The pat- tern of intercorrelations of PAQ scales suggests a different definition of sex roles in the two countries. The use of the PAQ to tap meaningful cultural differences is discussed. The usefulness of examining individuals' sex-typing - the degree to which they possess instrumental (masculine) and expressive (feminine) characteristics- has been amply documented in recent years (see Basow, 1980). The typical distribution of sex-typing categories in the United States has been fairly consistent when large numbers of individuals are studied, despite the use of two different measuring instruments in most research- the Bern Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bern, 1974), and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ; Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974). In general, about one-third of each sex are same-sex-typed, one third are androgynous (high in both instrumental and expressive traits), one- tenth are cross-sex-typed, and one-quarter are undifferentiated (low in both instrumental and expressive traits). Although there are slight differences by age and sex, the stability of the general distribution of sex-typing in the United States is notable. Some of the stability comes from the practice of using the median- split procedure, based on the median Masculinity and Femininity scores of the aPortions of this research were funded by Grant No. P-798-R-7 from Lafayette College's Committee on Advanced Study and Research. The author's appreciation goes to members of the School of Education at the University of the South Pacific for their helpfulness during the course of this research, as well as to the Ministry of Education and to the principal of the five secondary schools studied. 577 0360-0025/84/0400-0577503.50/0 © "i 984 Plenum Publishing Corporation