Rôles féminins, rôles masculins, le regard des adolescentes lycéennes de Tijuana (Basse Californie, Mexique)

Abstract

Gender studies play an increasing role in the analysis of the changes of different socio-demographic phenomena or resistance to those changes. However, using the gender perspective to explain the behaviors requires a preliminary analysis of identities and gender roles. Teenagers in Tijuana, on the U.S.-Mexico border, live in a social, national and regional context where there are multiple contours of masculine and feminine identities. So, what are the teenagers’ representations about gender identities and roles? Beyond this description, it seems important to analyze its social construct through socialization processes. What features in the environment, particularly family and school, promote adolescents’ adherence to a given gender system? The research is based on quantitative data, a survey of 1 348 school girls in two high schools located in Tijuana, and a qualitative data collected through group interviews. If the redefinition of female identity seems largely initiated, motherhood and the definition of male identity impede the evolution of the gender system. Adolescents’ positions result from multiple socializations’ vectors such as age, place of socialization, parental education, type of school, and development of intellectual skills by gender, etc.

Keywords

• gender
• border
• socialization
• teenagers