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Good Girls Go to the Polling Booth, Bad Boys Go Everywhere: Gender Differences in Anticipated Political Participation Among American Fourteen-Year-Olds

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Participation research routinely reveals a gender gap with regard to most forms of political engagement. In the recent literature, differences in the availability of resources and civic skills are usually invoked as an explanation for this pattern. This theory focuses primarily on adult behavior and has not as yet been investigated among young people, for whom we can assume that resources are distributed more equally. In this article, we examine gender differences in the anticipation of political participation among American fourteen-year-olds, building on the 1999 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement study (n = 2,811). First, the results show that girls at this age mention even more actions they intend to engage in than do boys, so clearly the gender gap with regard to the level of participation has not yet emerged at that age. Second, we observe distinct patterns with regard to the kinds of actions favored, with girls being drawn more towards social movement-related forms of participation than boys, and with boys favoring radical and confrontational action repertoires as compared to girls. The results are important for the reconceptualization of the concept of political participation as well as for theories that explain the gender gap.
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Good Girls Go to the Polling Booth,
Bad Boys Go Everywhere:
Gender Differences
in Anticipated Political Participation
Among American Fourteen-Year-Olds
Marc Hooghe, Catholic University of Leuven
Dietlind Stolle, McGill University
ABSTRACT. Participation research routinely reveals a gender gap with
regard to most forms of political engagement. In the recent literature,
differences in the availability of resources and civic skills are usually in-
voked as an explanation for this pattern. This theory focuses primarily
on adult behavior and has not as yet been investigated among young peo-
ple, for whom we can assume that resources are distributed more equally.
In this article, we examine gender differences in the anticipation of polit-
ical participation among American fourteen-year-olds, building on the
1999 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achi-
evement study (n = 2,811). First, the results show that girls at this age
mention even more actions they intend to engage in than do boys, so
clearly the gender gap with regard to the level of participation has not yet
emerged at that age. Second, we observe distinct patterns with regard to
the kinds of actions favored, with girls being drawn more towards social
movement-related forms of participation than boys, and with boys fa
-
voring radical and confrontational action repertoires as compared to
girls. The results are important for the reconceptualization of the concept
of political participation as well as for theories that explain the gender
gap.
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Women & Politics, Vol. 26(3/4) 2004
http://www.haworthpress.com/web/WP
2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1300/J014v26n03_01 1
Gender differences with regard to political participation have proven
to be remarkably persistent. In most liberal democracies, women partic
-
ipate less intensively in political life, they profess to be less politically
interested, and, with a few major exceptions (the Scandinavian coun
-
tries, for example) they are dramatically underrepresented at the parlia
-
mentary and executive level (Atkeson and Rapoport 2003; Burns, Schloz-
man, and Verba 2001; Burns 2002; Carroll 2003; van Deth 2000;
Inglehart and Norris 2003). While some of the earlier studies on this
topic operated under the assumption that these gender differences will
gradually disappear as women catch up with men in the fields of educa
-
tion, professional careers, and income, recent evidence suggests that the
difference is still highly significant. Moreover, even where this gap has
decreased, it has done so at a very slow pace (Bennett and Bennett 1989;
for a review see Inglehart and Norris 2003).
By now, it has become generally accepted that the persistence of this
gender gap cannot be attributed to one single factor, but rather should be
seen as the result of an interplay of various elements (Burns, Schloz-
man, and Verba 2001: 358-9). On the one hand, some authors stress the
fact that women have fewer resources available than men with regard to
income, education, and time as well as civic skills. Because of child-
rearing responsibilities, for example, women have less discretionary
time or resources available to spend on political participation and other
forms of voluntary engagement (Okin 1989; Phillips 1991). Other au-
thors focus on the role of institutions, and claim that the male-domi-
nated culture of associations and political parties (especially at the elite
level) actually inhibits women from gaining full access to the political
realm (Lowndes 2000; Norris 1997). Still others highlight that mar-
riage, motherhood and homemaking might socialize women out of poli-
tics (Andersen 1975; Burns 2002: 480; Jennings and Niemi 1981).
A major limitation of these empirical studies, however, is that they
include only adult respondents. This focus on a population above the
voting age has major consequences. First, it is altogether likely that we
are missing part of the story, given our knowledge that gender roles take
root quite early in the life cycle, and certainly well before the age of
eighteen (Brown and Gilligan 1992; Maccoby 1998; Maccoby and Jack-
lin 1974). The inclusion of younger respondents, therefore, might in
-
form us about the way gender roles and expectations actually affect po
-
litical involvement early on.
Second, the study of young respondents allows us to test the validity
of the claim that the availability of resources might determine differ
-
ences in participation behavior (Sigel 1996; Verba, Schlozman, and
2 WOMEN & POLITICS
Brady 1995). We can assume that for fourteen-year-old adolescents, there
is not yet a systematic difference with regard to the availability of re
-
sources such as time, money, cognitive skills, and so on. If differences
in resources are the fundamental barriers to adult women’s participa
-
tion, as is often suggested, then adolescents, who presumably have
smaller resource gaps between gender groups, should have more equal
political engagement levels. Therefore, if we do not find any gender dif
-
ferences in anticipated political participation at age fourteen, this stren-
gthens explanations that rely on resource arguments to explain gender
differences in political participation levels.
1
On the other hand, if we would find gender differences with regard to
political participation among fourteen-year-olds, the theoretical conse-
quences to be drawn are less clear. Such a finding would not necessarily
invalidate the resource explanation since we can still argue that even
young girls anticipate their future gender roles, within which they will
have fewer resources at their disposal to devote to politics. In addition, it
seems likely that a gendered socialization has already affected gender
roles in earlier ages through media, school, and peer influences, which
also affects intentions of political participation (Thorne 1993). Never-
theless, the finding of significant gender differences at the age of four-
teen would imply that research should not be limited to the availability
of resources, but that it should also take into account cultural or social-
ization explanations. More specifically, in this scenario more attention
should be paid to the way societies transmit gender roles to new cohorts.
An exploration of the political expectations held by fourteen-year-old
girls and boys, therefore, is interesting not just in and of itself, but also
because it can shed new light on the general study of gender and politi-
cal participation.
The inclusion of young people in the study of gender and political
participation is therefore highly relevant, both on theoretical and empir
-
ical grounds. In this article we rely on a survey that was conducted in
1999 among 2,811 eighth-graders across the United States, and can be
considered as representative for this age group (NCES 2001). Since
fourteen-year-olds do not yet have the right to vote and they cannot yet
join political parties, most of the relevant questions in this survey deal
with the nature of political behavior respondents envision for them
-
selves once they become enfranchised. Earlier research has shown that
this mode of prospective questioning is highly informative about the
likelihood of future political participation (Torney-Purta et al. 2001).
In this regard, it is equally important not to limit this study to a purely
quantitative analysis. The question is not only whether girls intend to be
Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle 3
more or less active than boys; it has been shown that, among adults,
women and men do not differ just in the level of participation, but also
with regard to the kinds of activities they prefer (Lowndes 2000; Stolle
and Micheletti, forthcoming). Women have been shown to engage more
in small-scale, less formal, and caring forms of activity, whereas men
seem to prefer formal, politicized, and hierarchical organizations (Elia-
soph 1998; Katzenstein 1998). Here too, the question is whether these
gendered differences exist already at age fourteen, or if they emerge only
later on in the life-cycle.
In this article, we first offer a brief review of the available literature
on gender and participation before moving on to the presentation of our
dataset. Subsequently, we examine the forms and level of political be-
havior that girls and boys anticipate for themselves in the future, and as-
certain the factors responsible for their views. In our conclusion, we
argue that participation research should pay more attention to political
acts preferred by women, and to the way adolescent girls and boys an-
ticipate gender role expectations.
LITERATURE
The gender gap with respect to political participation and civic en-
gagement is well established; indeed, this difference can be considered
as one of the most stable findings in participation research (Sapiro 1983;
Conway 2000). The gender gap holds for both conventional and uncon-
ventional forms of participation (Barnes and Kaase 1979; Verba, Nie,
and Kim 1978), while it also has been found in various subgroups of the
population (Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001).
However, there is little consensus about how these gender differ-
ences can be explained. We will not develop a lengthy review of the lit
-
erature here, since the research findings on gender and political partic-
ipation are expertly reviewed and summarized in a number of recent
publications (Burns 2002; Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; Carroll
2003; Inglehart and Norris 2003). For a clear understanding of our data
analysis, however, it is necessary to provide the reader with a brief sum
-
mary of the various factors that might be responsible for the lower par
-
ticipation levels of women, at least in most societies, and with regard to
some forms of participation.
In the 1970s, the distinction between explanations based on apathy
and inhibition offered the main paradigm for the study of gender differ
-
ences in participation (Ackelsberg and Diamond 1987; Verba, Nie, and
4 WOMEN & POLITICS
Kim 1978). While the apathy thesis held that women simply participate
less intensively because of an innately reduced interest in politics, the
inhibition thesis assumes that women “care about politics but are inhib
-
ited from participating because of external restraints or self-restraints”
(Verba, Nie, and Kim 1978: 237). These inhibitions can be both exter
-
nal (such as rules barring women from the right to vote or to participate
in politics), or internal (such as the interiorization of gender roles that
limit women’s access to the public sphere).
Since the 1970s, feminist scholars have been building mainly on the
inhibition thesis, highlighting the fact that private inequalities (with re
-
gard to household division of labor and power) have a strong effect on
the opportunities available to women wishing to engage in political ac-
tion: “women are prevented from participating in public life because of
the way their private lives are run. The division of labor between wo-
men and men constitutes for most women a double burden of work”
(Phillips 1991: 96). Other authors claim that political institutions inevi-
tably operate in a gender-biased manner, as elites proclaim allegedly
neutral rules and evaluation criteria that systemically downplay the role
played by women (Young 1990).
More recent research, however, indicates that it would be erroneous
to pinpoint the observed gender difference to just one specific cause–
rather, a subtle interplay of various elements seems to be at work. Burns
(2002) offers four possible elements to explain the gender gap with re-
gard to political activity. First, women tend to have fewer civic skills,
e.g., with regard to speaking in public, writing texts and leaflets or chair-
ing meetings (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). Enduring segrega-
tion of the job market means that fewer women hold professional posi-
tions that would allow them to cultivate this kind of civic skills. Second,
family life tends to reduce the time women have at their disposal to en
-
gage in civic action. In this respect, not just the actual division of labor
within the family can have an effect, but also the way spouses interact
and share gender role expectations (Hochschild 1989; Schlozman, Burns,
and Verba 1994). Third, childrearing responsibilities might have a det
-
rimental effect on women’s participation, most notably when children
are very young and require almost constant attention and care. A fourth
explanation focuses on the way gender roles limit the options available
to women to engage in various forms of political action. These gender
roles are at play both at the level of the individual (if they are interior-
ized) and on the level of organizations that are portrayed as being less
open to female participation.
Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle 5
In the Political Activism study, a massive participation project con
-
ducted by Verba and associates in the early 1990s, not all of these hy
-
potheses could be confirmed empirically. Burns, Schlozman, and Verba
(2001: 359) do not find any support for either the child-rearing or the
leisure time hypotheses. Inequalities with regard to family life and dif
-
ferences in socioeconomic resources because of job inequality, on the
other hand, were proven to be significant explanatory variables. In their
conclusion, Burns, Schlozman, and Verba stress the role job inequali
-
ties play: “when other relevant variables are taken into account, men are
more likely than women to get the kinds of jobs that develop civic skills
and to gain positions of lay leadership in their churches–with potential
consequences for their portfolio of participatory resources” (2001:
360). This study also demonstrates that, because media attention is bi-
ased towards male politicians and decision makers, women’s interest in
politics and their intention to participate in the political process is muted.
Thus far we have treated political participation in a rather general
manner, lumping together various forms of participation. It is important
to acknowledge, however, that differences between female and male
participation patterns and preferences are not just quantitative but also
distinctly qualitative. Men, in other words, tend to prefer other forms of
participation than women (Ackelsberg 2003; Ferree and Martin 1995;
Lowndes 2000). In general, women favor smaller-scale and less con-
flict-oriented forms of engagement (Eliasoph 1998), with fewer formal
institutions and hierarchies (Arnold 1995). Women tend to choose
forms of political involvement that connect politics with their daily
lives and needs more than men do. In a number of instances, women’s
participation is also concentrated in gender-segregated networks within
larger institutions, a phenomenon that is hardly captured in survey re-
search on participation (Katzenstein 1998). In other words, instead of
making the general claim that women participate less than men, a dis
-
tinction should be made according to specific forms of engagement.
While gender differences tend to persist with regard to campaigning
and membership, the gender gap in voter turnout has been reversed, with
women voting more often than men at least in some countries and some
groups of the population (Conway, Steuernagel, and Ahern 1997). As a
result, it can be estimated that during the 1997 general election in Brit
-
ain, approximately two million more women turned out to vote than
men (Evans and Norris 1999). With regard to some policy issues there
are also clear differences, as women tend to pay more attention to issues
like education, child care, or abortion rights and often hold different po
-
sitions on the military, poverty, and the use of firearms (CAWP 1997).
6 WOMEN & POLITICS
While some earlier studies demonstrated gender differences with regard
to unconventional or protest activities (Barnes and Kaase 1979), in
more recent studies this gender gap seems to have dissipated, as women
are now equally active in these forms compared to men (Norris 2002).
It is self-evident that this brief review of the literature cannot offer a
full summary of the research findings on gender and political participa
-
tion (see Inglehart and Norris 2003). It is important to remember, how
-
ever, that research has shown that gender differences have been persistent,
especially with regard to more formal forms of political participation.
Furthermore, there is no single “magic bullet” explanation for gender
inequalities with regard to political participation. Socioeconomic and
structural inequalities, bias with regard to access, differential mobiliza-
tion patterns, and cultural variables all seem to play a role.
However, recently, the focus has been sharpened on the importance
of various resources for women to participate in politics equally. In this
context, the study of young adolescents is extremely relevant. Various
explanations that are often invoked to explain the lower level of female
participation cannot have a direct impact on fourteen-year-olds. At this
age, differences in resources, especially with regard to income, job po-
sition, work related skills or household responsibilities have yet to come
into play.
2
The experiences of children and marriage can also be safely
ruled out at this age. Young adolescents, therefore, offer us a very inter-
esting testing ground; if gender differences can be detected at this age, a
number of the routine “culprits” for the gender gap can be eliminated,
pointing strongly into the possibility that cultural and socialization ex-
planations might be at work. If these differences cannot be detected, this
strengthens the case for the resource explanations.
DATA AND METHODS
Our effort to ascertain whether gender differences in repertoires of
political participation are already present at age fourteen is based on the
secondary analysis of a survey conducted among 2,811 eighth graders
in the United States. This study was part of a larger International Asso
-
ciation for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) sponsored
research effort with surveys being conducted in 28 countries (Torney-
Purta et al. 2001). IEA is devoted to the comparative study of the effec
-
tiveness and the performance of education and school systems, and in
general, IEA studies enjoy a good reputation in the field of education
evaluation research. Thus far, however, only the American data file has
Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle 7
been released for secondary analysis, while the data for the other 27
countries should be released in the near future (NCES 2002). In the
United States, the survey was conducted among eighth graders in 124
schools across the country. These schools were selected with attention
to geographical diversity, number of pupils, public or private character,
and the ethnic composition of the student body. In the schools, 2,811
pupils actually participated and delivered a full questionnaire. Of these
pupils 1,392 were girls, 1,375 were boys and 44 did not report any gen
-
der. The sample contained 15 percent Hispanics, 5 percent Native
Americans, 6 percent Asians, 18 percent African Americans and 64 per
-
cent whites. A complete technical report about sampling procedures and
characteristics of the test population can be found in Ogle (2002). The
primary purpose of this survey was to assess the effectiveness of vari-
ous civic education efforts in schools. The questionnaire therefore is fo-
cused on school-related variables, while other possible determinants of
civic attitudes and behaviors receive less attention. Nevertheless, this
dataset contains sufficient information to test a number of assumptions
in the current literature on political participation.
At first sight, eighth graders seem an unlikely group to test political
participation theories. It is indeed plausible that youngsters at this age
have not formulated meaningful political opinions; here too, the proof
of the pudding is in the eating. Our results will determine whether four-
teen-year-olds reply randomly to political questions, or whether clear
patterns emerge indicating that “tomorrow’s citizens” are already quite
aware of the possibilities and the likelihood of their future political en-
gagement. Based on the available literature on youth socialization we
expect that young people already know what they perceive as unfair in
society; moreover, we also expect that they have developed ideas about
whether they are able to bring about change in social arrangements, and,
if so, how they will pursue this goal. To put this in terms of development
psychology, they already have some conception of what their future
role in society will be (Youniss 1982). Longitudinal research, further
-
more, suggests that experiences of socialization at a young age, such as
participation in youth associations or certain forms of civic education,
can have a lasting impact on adult political ideas and behavior patterns
(Hooghe and Stolle 2003; Hooghe, Stolle and Stouthuysen 2004; Yates
and Youniss 1999). We therefore assume that the political conceptions
and expectations of fourteen-year-olds can be studied in a meaningful
and informative way. We test this proposition with our data.
8 WOMEN & POLITICS
FUTURE POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
In this analysis, we are mainly interested in the kind of political and
civic engagement that fourteen-year-olds envision for themselves when
they become adults. In the survey, pupils were offered a list of 12 forms
of engagement, and for each form they could indicate how likely it was
that they would engage in it. For activities linked to the electoral pro
-
cess, the question was phrased as the likelihood to engage once “you are
an adult.” For the other activities, the question referred to “the next few
years.” For each of these activities, the respondents were offered four
answering categories, ranging from “I will certainly not do this” to “I
will certainly do this.” The results of this question are represented in Ta
-
ble 1.
The results in Table 1 show that for seven activities girls outnumber
boys, as they indicate a higher inclination to participate in this kind of
action. While girls on average report 4.55 acts, boys mention on average
4.00 acts. This finding is interesting because it shows that girls at least
anticipate that they will participate in politics more than boys do, at least
within the framework of the proposed options of involvement. And yet
the adult findings show a reversed effect: in the Political Activism
Study, women reported they had engaged in 1.96 political acts on aver-
age, whereas for men this number was 2.27 (Burns, Schlozman, and
Verba 2001: 1).
The difference between these two findings cannot be easily explained,
but four scenarios stand out. To start with, the Activism study is based
on reported behavior, while the IEA study probes intentions to partici-
pate. It might be that girls are more eager to appear to conform to the im-
age of concerned citizens, an image widely promoted in schools in
general and more specifically in civics classes. This would imply that
among girls the distance between intention and behavior is larger than
among boys, which by itself would be an interesting finding. Second,
our measurement scale incorporates a larger diversity of engagement
indicators, including various volunteering and campaign activities. In
the Political Activism study, an eight item measurement scale was used
that focused more strongly on electoral activities; this turns out to be
one of the major exceptions in the data noted above, as fourteen-year-
old girls score lower than boys. This would imply that the measurement
scales that are used most often in this kind of research are biased in fa
-
vor of activities that are apparently preferred by men. A third possible
explanation might be that we are indeed witnessing the gradual emer
-
gence of gender differences during the transition from youth to adult
-
hood. At the age of fourteen, girls are at least just as strongly interested
Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle 9
in civic engagement as boys. Ten years later, however, the roles would
be reversed and women do not engage in as many political acts as they
had originally planned. This explanation, of course, is compatible with
the previously discussed resource theory and also with the thesis that fo-
cuses on women’s family responsibilities as a source of gender differ
-
ences. Over the following decades, most of the girls interviewed in this
survey will enter a family relationship and the labor market, which might
lead them to face obstacles when transforming their intention to partici
-
pate into real participation. A fourth explanation might be that the girls
interviewed in 1999 belong to a generation that has already overcome
the main gender gaps in participation, whereas these differences are still
persistent in the current adult population. Only future research can show
which of the four scenarios is at work here. The overall point, though, is
that in terms of frequency of intended participation, we do not find the
typical gender differences exhibited among adults.
DIMENSIONS OF PARTICIPATION
Thus far we have only discussed the differences between girls and
boys with regard to their anticipated level of participation; now, we turn
10 WOMEN & POLITICS
TABLE 1. Anticipation of Future Political Behavior
Likelihood of future behavior All Girls Boys
rank
Will vote in national elections 1 79.2 83
.8 75.0
Will collect information on
candidates in elections
274.579
.1 70.1
Will volunteer 3 65.9 78
.6 52.8
Will collect money 4 52.2 60
.5 43.3
Will collect signatures 5 43.5 48
.2 38.5
Will protest peacefully 6 33.9 35
.8 31.7
Will join political party 7 25.7 25.2 26
.2
Will write to newspaper 8 24.9 28.0 21.5
Will be candidate for office 9 15.9 14.5 16
.9
Will paint slogans 10 13.5 8.3 19.0
Will occupy buildings 11 12.9 10.0 15.6
Will block traffic 12 11.6 7.1 16.3
Activities mentioned 4.26 4.55 4.00
Entries in columns 3-5 are percentages of those who mentioned these activities as something they
would do in the near future or as an adult (probably or certainly do this). Source: IEA study, USA
1999. Percentages are weighted by population weights.
to differences in the kinds of activity they prefer. This distinction is
most pronounced with respect to volunteering, where the number of re
-
spondents willing to engage in this form of action is 25 percent higher
among girls than it is among boys. However, also with regard to voting
and collecting money and signatures, girls mention they would be more
involved. The five activities where the boys score higher, however, are
rather telling; boys indicate more often the wish to become party mem
-
bers and/or seek office, and they are also overwhelmingly interested in
radical or even violent forms of participation.
It is striking to observe that girls intend to engage in various forms of
engagement and activism, but less so in political parties, or in running
for office. This is a relevant finding since a lot of the research on politi-
cal participation focuses almost exclusively on this category of elec-
tion-related participatory acts. Yet participation in the electoral arena
represents one of the few categories where women (and girls) are less
represented (Milbrath and Goel 1977). Given our results, the gender gap
in electoral and party participation should not be generalized toward the
entire spectrum of participation acts. In fact, our findings suggest that
the expansion of the definition of political participation beyond strictly
electoral acts closes much of the gender gap, at least at age fourteen.
Second, the gap with regard to running for office is small, but it could
have dramatic consequences. Earlier research has shown that women
are more motivated to participate in election campaigns if one of the
leading candidates is also a woman. In addition, they pay more attention
to political news if female politicians are running for office (Burns,
Schlozman, and Brady 2001; Hansen 1997). The fact that even fourteen-
year-old girls already seem to refrain from this specific kind of electoral
activity, therefore, could imply that in the future too there will still be a
relative shortage of female role models as successful politicians.
The percentage of boys indicating that they want to participate in
some form of radical political action is almost twice as high as the per
-
centage among girls. Typical activities here include spraying slogans or
blocking traffic. It is clear that girls are less attracted to these forms of
confrontational and even violent participation. Perhaps gender role ex
-
pectations strengthen the perception that this kind of physical activity is
predominantly male-oriented. We know that even from an early age,
boys are more prone to engage in violent action and dominant behavior
than girls are (Sidanius and Pratto 1999; Whiting and Edwards 1988).
This finding could also reflect the fact that girls and perhaps women
generally prefer less adversarial political action. Our findings also re
-
flect the results from the Barnes and Kaase (1979) study, which de
-
Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle 11
picted a large difference between the participation of women and men in
these unconventional forms of political action. They are equally consis
-
tent with the findings from the 2001 World Values Survey, which
showed that men have engaged in confrontational political action more
often than women (Inglehart and Norris 2003). It seems as if girls are
more eager to participate in socially accepted forms of civic engage
-
ment, while boys additionally employ acts that are generally not encour
-
aged among young adults.
A factor analysis revealed in Table 2 supports the assertion that these
various acts of participation tap three distinct dimensions of participa
-
tion and engagement (Torney-Purta et al. 2001). The most obvious fac
-
tor reflects the radical action repertoire, including confrontational or
even illegal acts. The second factor encompasses conventional electoral
participation, with items such as voting or joining a political party. A
third factor depicts volunteering and social movement-related activi-
ties, like collecting money and signatures, or other forms of volunteer-
ing. It is important to note here that these three dimensions are found
among the boys as well as the girls, with the major exception that among
boys, voting loads only poorly on the conventional factor.
EXPLAINING THE INTENTION TO PARTICIPATE
Given the results of the factor analysis, it is self-evident that we should
not just try to explain the overall level of anticipated future behavior. It
is equally important to ascertain whether girls and boys differ with re-
gard to the kind of political engagement they envision. This implies that
for the next step in our analysis, three different dependent variables will
be used. Three sum scales (based on the results of the factor analysis)
will be employed distinguishing whether respondents say they are likely
to engage in conventional, radical or social movement forms of activ
-
ism.
Our main purpose here is to construct a multivariate model that allows
us to ascertain whether or not gender differences are present with re
-
spect to various forms of participation, even when taking into account a
number of control variables that are likely to determine participation be
-
havior. We rely on independent variables from the literature on political
participation and youth political socialization (for a review see Galston
2001; Jennings 2002; Yates and Youniss 1999). Given that we examine
secondary data collected for other purposes, we are forced to use the
variables employed in the original study. Furthermore, it should be re
-
12 WOMEN & POLITICS
TABLE 2. Dimensions of Anticipated Political Behavior
Likelihood of future behavior
Factors
I radical – II new social movement – III conventional
All Girls Boys
I II III I II III I II III
Will vote in national elections .525 .647 .383
Will collect information on
candidates in elections
.598 .643 .533
Will volunteer .761 .745 .766
Will collect money .799 .786 .805
Will collect signatures .742 .703 .734
Will protest peacefully .617 .558 .643
Will join political party .811 .772 .827
Will write to newspaper .719 .670 .759
Will be candidate for office .659 .543 .739
Will spray slogans .849 .850 .854
Will occupy buildings .857 .848 .850
Will block traffic .889 .884 .885
Eigenvalue (Rotation Sum
of Squares)
2.7 2.4 2.4 2.7 2.4 2.2 2.7 2.6 2.4
Explained variance 22.6 20.5 20.3 22.4 20.0 18.6 22.6 21.5 20.0
Factor loadings from a Factor analysis (Principal component) with Varimax rotation.
13
membered that this is a rather homogeneous sample, and consequently a
number of possible variables could not be used. Almost all respondents
are fourteen years old, with a mean age of 14.40 (and a standard devia
-
tion of 0.64), and all are pupils in the eighth grade. No information on
religion was available, as it was considered unethical to ask such ques
-
tions of juveniles in a school context. Information on ethnic background,
on the other hand, is available and depicts an almost two-thirds majority
of white pupils in the sample. It is a robust finding in participation re
-
search that ethnic minorities participate less intensively than members
of the dominant group in society (Schlozman 2002; Verba, Schlozman,
and Brady 1995).
In general, education can be considered one of the most important de-
terminants of participation levels, as almost every study conducted on
this subject has demonstrated that highly educated citizens participate
more intensively than people with less educational credentials (Nie,
Junn, and Stehlik-Barry 1996). However, little is known about what ex-
actly in the education process helps to instill civic responsibility and
commitment. Research conducted on civic education has documented
that its completion increases the likelihood that pupils will participate in
politics later on; the extensiveness of civic education can play an espe-
cially important role in this respect (Niemi and Junn 1998). Therefore,
we included a sum scale of the number of topics that were discussed in
civic education classes.
3
Other studies on the effects of schooling, how-
ever, claim that not just the formal curriculum is important, but also the
informal curriculum: are pupils, in other words, encouraged to speak out
and to discuss among themselves and with their teachers? Torney, Oppen-
heim, and Farnen (1975) have labeled this an “open classroom climate,”
and this too was included in the survey in the form of questions on the
perceived openness of schools and classroom settings.
The length of education is a typical measure of the availability of ed
-
ucational resources at the adult level; evidently, though, there is no vari
-
ation yet in this respect in a sample of fourteen-year-olds. However,
previous research has shown that the inquiring of adolescents as to the
number of years they expect to stay in school has a strong predictive
value (Torney-Purta 2001). Those who feel happy at school and experi
-
ence less trouble following courses on average see a longer educational
future ahead of them. Another variable probing into their relation with
school asks about the number of school days they missed last year. While
these absences might be due to various idiosyncratic reasons, in general
longer and more frequent absences point toward a more detached atti
-
tude toward the school; this, in turn, has been shown to have a negative
14 WOMEN & POLITICS
effect on political interest and willingness to engage in political life
(John, Halpern, and Morris 2002).
Not just the school environment, however, has an effect on the way
young people think about politics (Adler and Adler 1986; Youniss, Mc-
Lellan, and Yates 1997). Those who are already active in youth associa
-
tions and volunteering will be more likely to participate later on in their
lives (Hooghe 2003). Therefore, we also included the number of associ
-
ations that respondents are actively engaged in as an independent vari
-
able. We would like to have included more information about the socio-
economic status of the parents of the pupils, since we can safely assume
this will have an impact on the participation aspirations of these young
-
sters (Jennings and Niemi 1981). Given the emphasis on resources as a
source of explanation, it is also important to know whether there are any
systematic differences in the resources available at the children’s home.
This kind of information, however, could not be obtained by means of a
youth survey, for methodological and ethical reasons, and therefore the
research team responsible for the IEA survey decided to settle for a
proxy variable: an estimation of the number of books at home. It is a very
reasonable and well-tested assumption that the number of books reflects
the education level and income of the parents (Torney-Purta et al. 2001).
In Table 3 we present regression results explaining the three types of
intended participation using WesVar (http://www.westat.com/wesvar).
We use a linear regression model, with sample weights applied. The
complex sampling design for the IEA survey requires special estimation
techniques. The first stage sampling is at the school level with the sam-
pling of two schools in each primary sampling unit (PSU). The second
stage involves probability selection of the students within a school. When
the data are from complex samples, modifications of the standard esti
-
mation methods must be employed to reflect the effects of clustering,
stratification, or other features of the sample design (Steenbergen and
Jones 2002).The modelling in WesVar accomplishes this by applying
jackknife repeated replication (JRR) techniques to estimate the sampling
errors of the model parameters.
The most striking feature of the regression analysis depicted in Table
3 is that the various forms of participation are explained very differ
-
ently. Clearly, radical political acts stand out with explanatory variables
often indicating reverse effects. At the individual level, for example, the
number of years one expects to be in the education process positively
correlates with conventional acts, but it is the other way around with
radical acts. Children who belong to associations are also dispropor
-
tionately anticipating some form of participation in conventional and
Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle 15
movement acts, but the membership does not influence the anticipation
of radical acts whatsoever.
Looking at school-related factors, one observes that while the num
-
ber of topics discussed in civics classes has a strong positive effect on
conventional and social movement participation, it has a negative effect
on radical participation. Similarly, the open classroom climate is an im
-
portant facilitative factor for conventional and social movement related
political acts, but the perception of a closed classroom climate seems to
be fostering the willingness to engage in radical acts. This pattern can be
seen as a confirmation of our initial assumption that one should be care
-
ful about making sweeping statements about overall participation lev
-
els, without going into specific kinds of participation.
Although at first we found that girls and boys do not exhibit the typi-
cal gender gap with the political acts they intend, it is clear that girls are
more likely to engage in various forms of social movement related ac-
tivities, and this relation holds even after including all the control vari-
ables. On the other hand, girls are less likely to engage in radical
political actions. The different results when parceling out distinct politi-
cal action repertoires show that it is imperative in future research on po-
litical participation to distinguish between various forms of participation.
Only such an analysis can reveal that certain participation acts are ap-
parently preferred by women and girls–perhaps these are repertoires
that warrant closer attention by political scientists–whereas others are
disproportionately rejected.
It is obvious that at this age, gender roles and expectations figure
strongly in one’s determination of the participation profile girls and
boys envision for themselves. Girls tend to mention activities that are
considered socially beneficial; for boys, on the other hand, adversarial
(and sometimes even illegal) forms of action are more appealing. Given
what we know about the way girls and boys at a young age interact with
the school environment, it is very likely that this is more than just a su
-
perficial conformation process, but rather that it reflects interiorized
gender roles. At this age, gender differences with regard to educational
attainment are already clearly present, and they can largely be explained
by the fact that girls tend to behave in a more conformist, non-ad
-
versarial, and school-oriented fashion, while a greater proportion of the
boys rebel against the school environment, eventually even leading to
their dropping out entirely (Gorard, Rees, and Salisbury 2001). That a
certain number of boys mention radical participation acts fits into this
pattern. The results of the analysis show that these radical acts are in no
way related to what they learn at school, while other political acts are
16 WOMEN & POLITICS
TABLE 3. Explaining Participation Expectations
Conventional
B (SE B)
Radical
B (SE B)
Social Movement
B (SE B)
Cte. .06
(.03)
.43
(.04)
.27
(.03)
Gender (0 = male, 1 = female) .00
(.008)
.01 .08
(.012)
.17*** .05
(.009)
fourteen***
Ethnicity/Race
-Black
- Ethnic Minorities (†)
.01
(.009)
.01
(.009)
.02
.01
.05
(.016)
.03
(.013)
.06**
.05*
.04
(.012)
.04
(.008)
.07***
.07***
Topics in Civic Education .09
(.010)
.25*** .03
(.012)
.07** .01
(.010)
.25***
Open Classroom Climate .12
(.024)
.13*** .10
(.032)
.08** .09
(.028)
.09**
Years of Education Ahead .02
(.004)
.10*** .03
(.005)
.12*** .010
(.004)
.05
Days Absent from School .01
(.005)
.04 .03
(.006)
.13*** .00
(.006)
.02
Number of Associations .01
(.001)
.16*** .00
(.002)
.01 .02
(.002)
.23***
Books at Home .02
(.003)
.13*** .00
(.005)
.01 .00
(.004)
.02
r
2
.22 .11 .24
n 2,189 2,188 2,187
Entries are unstandardized coefficients, standard errors, and standardized coefficients from an ordinary least squares regression, using a WesVar
design. †: Includes Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander and Native American.
*** = p < .001; **< p < .01; *< .05
17
positively related with the presence of an open classroom climate, the
number of topics discussed in civic education classes, and the number
of expected years of further education. An even more obvious indica
-
tion of the notion that the boys who prefer radical actions are not neces
-
sarily school-oriented is the fact that they miss significantly more
school days. Radical action, in a way, is very much a manifestation of
“bad boy” behavior, in that it is not something that is encouraged or
stimulated by school institutions. Civic education apparently is more
successful in promoting the “good,” “kind,” and to some extent non-ad
-
versarial and non-threatening forms of participation (John, Halpern,
and Morris 2002).
CONCLUSION
Our initial question for this study was to examine whether the gender
differences that are typically found in research on adult political partici-
pation are already present among young people. Research among ado-
lescents can shed new light on the oft-invoked explanation that women
have fewer resources available to engage in public and political life
(Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001).
The answer to this question is inevitably twofold. With regard to the
level of participation, a first-cut test reveals that there is no difference
between girls and boys. In fact, girls mention more acts than boys. When
speculating on what this finding means for the study of adult participa-
tion, some caution is in order. To start with, there is a measurement
problem: the fact that girls even outperform boys in this study might be
due to the fact that the IEA study included a substantial number of social
movement related forms of action. As far as we know, this question-
naire has never been used for research among adults, and so we cannot
be sure that similar levels of engagement might be provoked by asking
adults about a wider variety of political acts. Second, there is the ques
-
tion whether this result will last: implicitly, we compare adult women
and young girls at the same moment of time. What we really want to
know, of course, is how the political action repertoire of these girls will
develop over time; what we would ideally want to know is how these
young women will participate ten years from now. It is possible that by
then gender differences among adults indeed will have disappeared, al
-
though the fact that these differences are remarkably consistent in any
research effort from the 1950s on does not lead to a strong feeling of op
-
timism on this front.
18 WOMEN & POLITICS
Despite these two caveats, our finding offers new insights on how we
can explain the observed differences in the participation level of women
and men. At an age where there are most likely no strong gender differ
-
ences with regard to the availability of resources, girls and boys intend
to participate equally. In adulthood, however, these differences do be
-
come apparent, and this strengthens the case for the resources-explana
-
tion of the gender gap. Therefore, the basic question in research on
women and political participation should not be: “Why do women par
-
ticipate less?” but rather “Why do adult women stop doing the things
they intended to do when they were adolescent girls?” Sigel (1996) in
-
vokes a process of “accommodation,” where girls accommodate and
adapt to gender roles when they mature into adulthood, and this kind of
theoretical insight is a good starting point if we want to study what ex-
actly changes between the ages of fourteen and, let us say, twenty-four.
Apparently, women change their political and social ambitions once
they engage themselves in relations and enter the job market, where they
are confronted with segregation and gender inequalities.
It is equally important, however, to pay more attention to the kind of
participatory acts favored by each gender. While girls and boys do not
differ significantly with regard to the level of anticipated participation,
they do intend to engage in different forms of political action. It is quite
telling to observe that most of the current research on political participa-
tion tends to focus on exactly those forms of participation where boys
excel. On one side there is an ongoing stream of electoral and party-re-
lated participation research, and on the other side radical forms of en-
gagement and activism are being studied as unconventional political
acts. The activities preferred by girls, to the contrary, tend to be ne
-
glected in participation research, or they are sometimes dismissed as not
being strictly political. An unbiased and meaningful study of participa
-
tion patterns, therefore, should include social movement-oriented forms
of activism, such as volunteering or collecting signatures and money for
political or social purposes, and give them equal weighting compared to
electoral or radical participation acts.
AUTHOR NOTE
The authors would like to thank M. Kent Jennings and Judith Torney-Purta for their
constructive comments on an earlier draft of this article, as well as Shep Roey from
Weststat for help with the estimation in WesVar.
Both authors contributed equally to this article.
Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle 19
NOTES
1. An alternative explanation for the potential lack of gender differences could be that
the cohort of fourteen-year-olds in 1999 (born in 1985) exhibits fewer gender differ
-
ences than all of their predecessors. Given the remarkable persistence of the gender gap
in political behavior, not only this is rather unlikely, but it is also an argument that we
can test only within a few decades time, when this cohort will have progressed into
middle age.
2. The only exception could be that girls at this age are expected to contribute more to
household chores than their male counterparts are. The survey unfortunately did not in
-
clude any information on this topic. In general, however, it can be expected that house
-
hold requirements at this age will remain rather limited, and will impose a limited time
burden, compared to the time adults spend on household and child rearing responsibili
-
ties. A time budget study conducted in Belgium showed that sixteen-year-old girls on
average report 3.5 hours of household work a week, while boys report 3.0 hours. This
difference, however, is negligible compared to the household workload of people in
their twenties that have left the home of their parents: 20 hours per week for women and
6 hours per week for men (Koelet 2002). At this moment, we do not know, however,
whether these Belgian findings can be generalized to US teenagers.
3. We rely on the pupil’s report about the number of topics discussed, so it could be
that in reality, various other topics were discussed too, but that the pupil failed to re-
member this. The same caveat holds for the variable on an open classroom climate, but
in this respect it that can be argued that if pupils themselves perceive the classroom cli-
mate as not being “open,” there certainly is a problem, no matter the intentions of the
teacher and the school.
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Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle 23
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This paper examines the role of demographic variables in predicting civic engagement. Precisely, it looks at the relative importance of religion and gender in predicting the likelihood of citizenship norms, political efficacy and civic engagement. The data used in this study were collected from a sample of 355 Nigerian undergraduates. Using t-test analysis and ANOVA, this study established that gender and religion, had partial predictive power in determining civic engagement of students. Specifically, result indicated that students’ political efficacy demonstrated that male (M=3.67, SD= 0.60) and female (M=3.36, SD= 0.69) had a substantial difference between them (t = 5.955, p= .015 < 0.05). Similarly, statistically significant difference occurred in civic engagement of students (F=3.452, p=0.032 < 0.05) based on religion. These findings have implications for scholars to conduct longitudinal studies that trace the civic engagement of students generally in universities.
... Estos comportamientos son llevados a cabo porque los chicos y chicas que tienen una alta autoeficacia ciudadana piensan que sus acciones darán lugar a cambios en las decisiones políticas (Schulz et al., 2010). Asimismo, y a pesar de que, según la literatura los intereses, comportamientos y actividades en las que se involucran los niños y niñas suelen ser diferentes -por ejemplo, las niñas se ven más atraídas por actividades relacionadas con los movimientos sociales y los niños por actividades más radicales y de confrontación (Hooghe y Stolle, 2004) o participan más que ellas en asuntos políticos como votar, hacer campaña, formar parte d alguna organización política, etc. (Cicognani et al., 2012;Metzger y Smetana, 2009;Metzger y Ferris, 2013)-, en el estudio de Schulz et al. (2010) las diferencias de género en la autoeficacia ciudadana fueron muy pequeñas en todos los países europeos. ...
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1. Introducción Schulz et al. (2010), en The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), con estudiantes de 38 países europeos, esta-blecieron los indicadores que deben tener los y las jóvenes para ser considerados ciudadanos comprometidos con la sociedad y la política. Entre ellos se encuentra la autoeficacia ciudadana, defi-nida por estos autores como las creencias de capacidad de los y las estudiantes para realizar tareas específicas en el área de parti-cipación cívica. Es decir, es un proceso motivacional que repre-senta la convicción del estudiante sobre su capacidad de ejercer acciones, que harán frente a diversas situaciones, para obtener re-sultados deseados en los sistemas políticos específicos (Schulz et al., 2018). Resultados relevantes del estudio Schulz et al. (2010) consta-taron que la autoeficacia ciudadana se relacionó de forma positi-va en la mayoría de los países europeos con la participación electoral esperada y el conocimiento cívico de los estudiantes. Tam-bién se ha encontrado una asociación positiva de esta variable
... In terms of gender, results confirm the presence of gender differences in support for violent and non-violent radicalization (Jahnke et al., 2022;Jahnke et al., 2023). Indeed, prior research has found that boys prefer more confrontational and less peaceful forms of activism compared to girls (Hooghe & Stolle, 2004). The small sample of adolescents who identified as transgender and gender-diverse reported patterns of associations similar to participants who identified as girls. ...
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Although support for violent and non-violent radicalization can co-occur, only a few adolescents who support non-violent radicalization also support or engage in violent acts. Yet, little is known about what factors are associated with adolescents’ paths towards or away from violent and/or non-violent radicalization. Within a socio-ecological and positive youth development framework, this study investigates profiles of support for violent and non-violent radicalization among adolescents attending high schools in Quebec (Canada) and whether such profiles are differently associated with experiences of social adversity, school-, family- and peer-related factors and psychological distress. Adolescents (N = 1911; Mage = 15.7; SDage = 0.98; 48.7% girls) completed an online survey during school hours. A Latent Profile Analysis on scores of support for violent and non-violent radicalization was conducted. A multinomial logistic regression was used to explore the associations between profiles and variables of interest. We identified six profiles of adolescents. The heterogeneity of profiles suggested multiple and complex combinations of support for violent and non-violent radicalization as well as their co-existence in some but not all profiles. Adolescents who reported less discrimination, more positive school experiences and more family support were less likely to belong to profiles that supported violence. Primary prevention efforts in the field of support for violent radicalization must adopt a socio-ecological and social justice approach and consider the diversity of adolescents’ profiles, attitudes and experiences.
... These studies also show that female competition has many shapes, which in most cases involves low-risk competition strategies, probably due to limitations related to the care of their offspring (Stockley and Campbell 2013). Findings from the present study coincide with those observed in another study which shows that 14-year-olds in the US do not differ in anticipated political participation levels, but that girls prefer ways related to social movements while boys tend to prefer radical actions and confrontation (Hooghe and Stolle 2004). This can also be explained by females' socialization ways, which tend to be more passive, private and respectful towards rules, as well as compassionate (West and Zimmerman 1987). ...
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One of the primary drivers behind adolescents engaging in risk-taking behaviors is the pursuit of status. This study examines how activism and radicalism mediate the relation between the search for status and risk-taking behaviors, moderated by sex. A total of 482 participants, with an average age of 17.97 (SD = 1.83), reported their levels of status-seeking, activism, radicalism, and engagement in risk-taking behaviors. The study revealed an indirect effect of seeking status on risk-taking behaviors through the mechanisms of activism and radicalism. Furthermore, sex moderated the relation between status, activism and radicalism, and risk-taking behaviors. In both girls and boys, activism correlated with reduced engagement in risk-taking, while radicalism correlated with increased engagement. In terms of sex differences, both activism and radicalism showed a more pronounced effect in boys than in girls. These findings highlight the role of political mobilization on the relation between the pursuit of status and engagement in risk-taking.
... Generizatutako patroi horien eskuratze-eta barneratze-prozesua, aurretik datorren sozializazio primarioaren jarraipen eta errefortzu gisa gertatzen da sarritan (Kuhn, 2010;Hooghe eta Stolle, 2004), halako moldez non «eguneroko sexismoak» gazteen kontzientzia arrunta kutsatzen duen (Calder-Dawe eta Gavey 2016). Habitus moduan barneratutako egitura kognitiboek (Bourdieu 1990; kategoria femenino eta maskulino gisa sailkatzen laguntzen dute ezaugarri eta praktika sozial jakin batzuk, eta horien erreprodukzio naturalizatua ahalbidetzen dute hainbat mailatan, egiturazkoan, interakzionalean eta subjektibotasunenean, hurrenez hurren (Neetu et al., 2017). ...
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European identity formation is a component of political identity and linked to the support of European institutions and values. To understand how it develops, we examined three processes of identity formation (commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) on a short- and mid-term time scale, and their interrelations. A total of 371 German adolescents (Mage = 14.24, SDage = 0.55, 60.37% females) participated in a longitudinal study and in a ten-day daily diary study. We conducted latent growth curve analysis (LGCM) and assessed rank-order stability and profile similarity for both time scales. Next, conditional LGCMs were run to examine associations of both time scales. We found a significant increase of all identity processes from the beginning to the middle of the school year and a significant decrease from the middle to the end of the school year. Across 10 days, growth curves varied according to the identity process. Stabilities were high for both time scales. Commitment at the beginning of the school year was negatively associated with fluctuations in commitment. Our results highlight the importance of examining different time scales and focusing on specific domains for understanding identity development in adolescence. They further indicate that short-term processes are associated with long-term development.
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One of the implications of social media is its ability to provide unrealistic goals for politicians aspiring for national positions, causing social media users to rush their decisions of accepting these messages as truth and disregard other reliable sources of information. This study aims to explore how participation and communication plays an important role in effectively discerning qualified candidates, accessing political risks, conducting negotiations to reduce conflicts, and mediating opposing views of the situation. Young women, particularly first-time voters, are the focus of this study, as communication scholars perceive them as the most vulnerable members of the online community, especially when voicing their opinions on social media. Women aged 18 and 19 years old from HUMSS Strand in University of Santo Tomas Senior High School, Manila participated in a focus group discussion that targeted their experiences in communicating their political views, including their preferred candidates and their perception of disinformation online. Through the frameworks of sense-making, findings and results were analyzed to show negative comments regarding politicians and opinion-makers promoting disinformation and how young female learners can improve their communication approaches to people with diverse online culture.
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This paper examines the extent to which the sex differences in political participation (specifically participation in election campaigns) have narrowed over the last twenty years, and finds that the change is due to a particular group of women--those employed outside the home--who now participate at a rate equal to that of men. The possibility that sociodemographic changes in this group of women account for their increased participation is examined, as well as the connection between feminism and participation and the role of the 1972 election in mobilizing working women.
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The intriguing thing about the study of political behavior is that it focuses our attention directly on “the people” in a political system. Without the existence and actions of people a political system has no meaning — it could not exist. There have been attempts to break this rule, but they have not been successful. There is a spot under the North Sea off the coast of England, for example, that continued to have parliamentary representation long after the sea had buried what was once the important port of Dunwich. This was one of the famous “rotten boroughs”. This make-believe borough, however, required the political action of real people to have political meaning, even if the real people had to act in rowboats.
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This book brings together an international collection of essays that describes the state of community participation among the world's youth. Authors from around the globe use fresh empirical data to present portraits of contemporary youths constructing their civic identities through such means as community service and political activism. The image of "Generation X" as socially disconnected and apathetic is contradicted by young people's efforts to comprehend the complexities of society and to work toward the realization of social-moral ideals. The findings in this volume contribute to a theory of political socialization that bases youth's understanding of political aspects of society and citizenship on participation in community and civic activities, rather than on the intake of abstract pieces of formal information. To this end, youth seek to resolve ideological tensions, such as in Northern Ireland and the Middle East; to overcome corrupting political practices, such as in Italy and Taiwan; to deal with disillusionment, such as in the emerging Eastern European nations; and to bridge barriers against youth's meaningful participation in the working of society, such as in Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Researchers in a wide array of fields, including psychology, sociology, political science, and education will find this book to be a valuable resource.
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This volume presents a research agenda, developed by leading scholars of American politics, suggesting directions that could fruitfully shape the study of women and American politics in the early 21st century. Each contributor was asked to identify existing gaps in knowledge in her area of expertise, to think about new directions for research, and to imagine the kinds of research projects that would both enhance our understanding of the dynamics surrounding women's participation in American politics and facilitate the efforts of those who are working to increase women's representation and influence in politics. The volume includes useful reviews of existing research about various aspects of women's political participation, but the primary focus is on important research questions that pose a challenge for the next generation of scholars. The contributors to this volume suggest approaches, methods, and topics for future research on the following subjects: political recruitment, campaign strategy, money, political leadership, parties and women's organizations, the gender gap in voting and public opinion, media, women of colour, and participation outside of conventional electoral politics. This volume originated from a conference organized by the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University.
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This volume presents a research agenda, developed by leading scholars of American politics, suggesting directions that could fruitfully shape the study of women and American politics in the early 21st century. Each contributor was asked to identify existing gaps in knowledge in her area of expertise, to think about new directions for research, and to imagine the kinds of research projects that would both enhance our understanding of the dynamics surrounding women's participation in American politics and facilitate the efforts of those who are working to increase women's representation and influence in politics. The volume includes useful reviews of existing research about various aspects of women's political participation, but the primary focus is on important research questions that pose a challenge for the next generation of scholars. The contributors to this volume suggest approaches, methods, and topics for future research on the following subjects: political recruitment, campaign strategy, money, political leadership, parties and women's organizations, the gender gap in voting and public opinion, media, women of colour, and participation outside of conventional electoral politics. This volume originated from a conference organized by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
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Part I. From There to Here - Theoretical Background: 1. From visiousness to viciousness: theories of intergroup relations 2. Social dominance theory as a new synthesis Part II. Oppression and its Psycho-Ideological Elements: 3. The psychology of group dominance: social dominance orientation 4. Let's both agree that you're really stupid: the power of consensual ideology Part III. The Circle of Oppression - The Myriad Expressions of Institutional Discrimination: 5. You stay in your part of town and I'll stay in mine: discrimination in the housing and retail markets 6. They're just too lazy to work: discrimination in the labor market 7. They're just mentally and physically unfit: discrimination in education and health care 8. The more of 'them' in prison, the better: institutional terror, social control and the dynamics of the criminal justice system Part IV. Oppression as a Cooperative Game: 9. Social hierarchy and asymmetrical group behavior: social hierarchy and group difference in behavior 10. Sex and power: the intersecting political psychologies of patriarchy and empty-set hierarchy 11. Epilogue.
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This study uses regression analysis of data from a telephone survey of 380 married couples to subject to rare empirical test the contention that, because women are unequal at home, they cannot be equal in the polity. The argument is often made that wives' disadvantage in comparison to their husbands with respect to control over family income, availability of free time, power over decisions, or mutual respect dampens their ability to participate fully in politics. In fact, domestic inequalities do have implications for political activity, but these effects differ from what is usually posited by being stronger for husbands than for wives. For husbands, control over major financial decisions and autonomy in using small amounts of time enhance their ability to participate in politics beyond what would be expected on the basis of their other characteristics. In short, being boss at home is politically empowering to husbands.