The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1 - 33

How Expectations Do Not Equate with Practice

entry into postsecondary residence from the
childhood home, many individuals have had
little time to challenge these ideas on a personal level before applying them to the new
environment of residential postsecondary life.
The beliefs of the college students studied by
Rosenkrantz et al. (1968) extended into all
aspects of life, with particular focus on the gendered divisions within the home and family
life. The pervasiveness of gender deﬁnitions in
the home was conﬁrmed by multiple studies
over 20 years (England, 1988; Kane & Sanchez,
1994; Rudman & Glick, 2001; Schwartz et al.,
2009), and this could provide insight into the
speciﬁc gender expectations of female student
leaders in residences where the RA serves as
both disciplinarian and housemate.
Mulder and Clark (2002) assert that designated leaders in the residence space should
serve as interim parental ﬁgures. Witt (1997)
explains that gender roles are learned and
solidiﬁed within the home. If notions of gendered behavior are carried into the surrogate
household of postsecondary residence living,
then the individuals who are supervisors in
this arena become surrogate parents and have
the learned gender roles of parents thrust
upon them. For mothers and female surrogates, gender role assumptions are those of
child nurturance (Cook-Gumperz, 1995), selflessness, and over-arching concern for others
(Eagly & Steffen, 1984). For males, the stereotypic gender role is that of master of the house,
"self-assertive and motivated to master" (Eagly
& Steffen, 1984, p. 735). If females are expected
to be caring and concerned for others, in contrast to the expectation that males act in the
world and master that world, females will be
at an automatic disadvantage when asked to

caring and concerned for others,
in contrast to the expectation
that males act in the world and
master that world, females will

residence house.

serve a punitive role or to be the master of a
residence house. This study sought to explore
the lived experiences of female RAs to see
whether or not such role contradictions were
characteristic of their work.

METHODOLOGY
The study was developed using a modiﬁcation and simpliﬁcation of the Creswell, Plano
Clark, Gutmann, & Hanson (2003) QUAL
QUAN Sequential Transformative Design (pp.
225, 228). In this framework, qualitative data
is analyzed, and the analysis is used to produce
a quantitative instrument. The research reﬂected in this study used a mixed survey,
incorporating both Likert- scale response questions and open-ended response questions.
Likert-scale questions used the 5-point scale,
with values 1 to 5 corresponding to the following statements: disagree completely, somewhat
disagree, no opinion either way, somewhat agree,
and extremely agree. Twelve scale-based questions were presented. The survey also included
33

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1