Abstract No study has examined the effect of parental conflict resolution mode, theorized through a feminist lens, on youth gender role attitude formation. This exploratory study fills the gap. It theorizes that how parents, often not equal partners in a heteronormative relationship due to an existence of gendered structural inequalities and gender norms, resolve their conflicts shapes youth gender role attitudes. To test this argument, I link the data on mothers from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth with the data on their children born between 1980 and 1984 from the Child and Young Adult Survey. The relationship is examined in a pooled and disaggregated sample to account for different life experiences between White (Hispanic and non-Hispanic) and Black families in the U.S. My findings suggest that parental conflict resolution mode in childhood has a varied effect on youth gender attitudes in the older U.S. millennial cohort. There are three major study implications. First, one needs to continue testing feminist theories empirically. Second, one needs to employ an intersectional perspective when theorizing and analyzing different groups that are positioned differently in the hierarchies, despite one’s assumption about the universality of a given feature of family life, such as inter-parental conflict. Finally, White American parents need to be taught to resolve their disagreements non-aggressively, as aggressive conflict resolution in the family is associated with increased gender role attitudinal traditionalism in White (Hispanic and non-Hispanic) American millennial youth.
Vera Beloshitzkaya (Tue,) studied this question.