Gender and Political Learning

The first part of this article is a review of 20 years of research on gender and political attitudes focusing on the high school years. The second part is a case study of two ninth-grade civics classes. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, the researcher found no gender differences in levels of student political interest, efficacy, confidence, or trust. Interviews revealed, however, that females expressed views on more public policy issues than did males. They were also more supportive of women holding political office. In class sessions, no attention was given to gender as a factor affecting political life, and the parts of the textbook that focused on women or gender were ignored.