What Makes You Think You are Feminist? Development and Validation of the Feminist Attitudinal and Behavioral Scale for Teachers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5944/rdp.v35i128.38806Keywords:
feminism, fattitudes, behaviors, teachers, scale developmentAbstract
Teachers play a key role in supporting and encouraging egalitarian attitudes at school. This study aimed to develop and validate the Feminist Attitudinal and Behavioral Scale for Teachers (FABS-T), a measure that comprises both attitudinal and behavioral domains. To do this, we conducted two studies of Childhood and Primary Education teachers and pre-service teachers. Study 1, qualitative (N = 309), asked participants about situations in which they had been portrayed as feminist. Six themes emerged, for which we developed an initial 60-item version. Study 2 (N = 451) aimed to evaluate the factor structure, reliability and validity. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported a 42-item version of the FABS-T with a final structure composed of five dimensions (56.7% of the variance explained). For both the attitudinal (Public Egalitarian Support and Private Egalitarian Support) and behavioral domain (Sexism Confrontation, Activism and Teaching Practices), reliability was good. Most dimensions were positively linked with feminist self-identification, and negatively with ambivalent sexism and social dominance orientation. Gender differences were observed in the behavioral dimensions. We highlight the need to distinguish attitudes from behaviors, where the latter was revealed as a core aspect of self-identifying as feminist.
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