The gender gap in political efficacy: the accelerating effect of classroom discussions

Abstract

Abstract The gender gap in political self-efficacy originates early in life and is among the most persistent inequalities in political attitudes across Western democracies. The difficulties in accessing data for early adolescents have resulted in limited research available to provide an understanding on how gender differences in political self-efficacy are developed. In this article we provide unique evidence on the development of the efficacy gap during secondary school. The Citizenship Educational Longitudinal study data from England on young people between the ages 11–16 shows that boys increase their levels of political self-efficacy significantly during this period while girls do not. Secondly, we show that teaching methods that are expected to enable the development of internal political efficacy, such as classroom discussions, are accelerating the gender gap in perceived abilities to get engaged in politics. Our findings show that, despite having the same access to classroom discussions in schools, this experience has a positive effect in the development of political efficacy for boys but, if anything, a negative effect for girls. Furthermore, even a small number of boys in the classroom discussions appears detrimental to girls’ political efficacy.