Loading...
Please wait, while we are loading the content...
Similar Documents
Good Girls Go to the Polling Booth, Bad Boys Go Everywhere: Gender Differences in Anticipated Political Participation Among American Fourteen-Year-Olds
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Hooghe, Marc Stolle, Dietlind |
| Copyright Year | 2004 |
| 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 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. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.] 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 participate less intensively in political life, they profess to be less politically interested, and, with a few major exceptions (the Scandinavian countries, for example) they are dramatically underrepresented at the parliamentary and executive level (Atkeson and Rapoport 2003; Burns, Schlozman, 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 education, 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, Schlozman, 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 childrearing 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 authors focus on the role of institutions, and claim that the male-dominated 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 marriage, motherhood and homemaking might socialize women out of politics (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 Jacklin 1974). The inclusion of younger respondents, therefore, might inform us about the way gender roles and expectations actually affect political 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 differences in participation behavior (Sigel 1996; Verba, Schlozman, and 2 WOMEN & POLITICS |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://profs-polisci.mcgill.ca/stolle/Publications_files/FinalWP.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
