Young and Gapped? Political Knowledge of Girls and Boys in Europe

This article aims at exploring the gender gap in levels of political knowledge, with a focus on lower secondary school students in Europe. Using the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009 (ICCS), we find that boys outperform girls when asked about facts, but girls demonstrate great...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ferrín, Mónica, Fraile Maldonado, Marta, Rubal, Martiño
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión enviada para evaluación y publicación
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/192078
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/192078
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Political knowledge
Gender gap
Survey methodology
Political socialization
Adolescent psychology
Descripción
Sumario:This article aims at exploring the gender gap in levels of political knowledge, with a focus on lower secondary school students in Europe. Using the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009 (ICCS), we find that boys outperform girls when asked about facts, but girls demonstrate greater knowledge when asked to reason about a particular political matter. Part of the gender gap in political knowledge among adolescents appears to be a function of what is defined as knowledge. We argue for the need to include a greater variety of items to measure political knowledge, including both factual and analytical domains of knowledge.