The purpose of this article is to demonstrate, paradigmatically, the extent to which item score data can vary across cultures despite measurements from an instrument for which the factorial structure is equivalently specified in each group. Based on item scores from the Beck Depression Inventory, the authors first tested for the group invariance of factorial structure and then examined the patterns of item score distributions and response frequencies across Canadian ( n = 658), Swedish ( n = 1,096), and Bulgarian ( n = 691) high school adolescents. Findings carry important implications for multigroup comparisons research in general, and for cross-cultural research in particular, where the primary interest focuses on testing for mean group differences.

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The purposes of the study were threefold: (a) to testforthefactorial validity of the French version of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-FR) separatelyfornonclinical adolescent francophone males (n = 551) andfemales (n = 601), (b) to cross-validatefindings across a second independent sample for each gender, and (c) to test for equivalent factorial structure across genderfor this population. Exceptfor one differentialfactor loadingfor females (Item 17), the hypothesized higher order4-factor structure was found to be both tenable across validation samples andfactorially invariant across gender. Although the presence of error covariances for females partially replicated a similar pattern for Englishfemale adolescents, results generally provide strong supportfor the psychometric soundness of the BDI-FR.

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether gender differences in the expression of depressive symptoms could be identified on the basis of responses to the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (RADS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Participants were 207 French-Canadian high school students (83 males, 124 females) from a large metropolitan area of Central Canada. Unlike previous studies with depressed samples, discriminant function analyses of data obtained from nonclinical subjects in the present study revealed lower mean scores for males than females on all interpretable RADS and BDI items. The discrepancy between these and other findings is discussed in the context of the sex role socialization theory. It is argued that females in general may be more likely to report a variety of depressive symptoms, but when overall depression scores are high, both males and females present symptoms congruent with their respective socially prescribed gender roles.