Men and Woman

I've written a number of times about the persistent difference found in studies of political knowledge when comparing the scores of men and women.  Guys, it seems, always seem to beat the gals.  And I've also written about some interesting approaches to explain (away) this difference.  One is in the kinds of questions asked.  When female politicians are used in knowledge questions, for example, the gap lessens. Also, men guess more and, given how knowledge surveys are often scored, that helps men.

Here I report on a study that shows it's not just a U.S. thing.  A survey in China, summarized here, finds the same difference between the sexes. 

Me, I avoid this argument, in part because my major professor from grad school, Mary Ann Ferguson, always told me to avoid attempting to explain sex differences in social science research.  She also hated content analysis, calling it the great intellectual cul-de-sac.

What Women Know

Men know more about politics than women.

At least that's what you'd think based on a zillion years of political knowledge research.  The sex variable is a consistent, significant predictor of political knowledge in its various traditional formats -- and almost always in such a way that men score higher than women.

But, as you may know, I love digging up the exceptions.  I've found a number of studies that attempt to explain this effect, and I've blogged about them.  Here's another (abstract here).  Quite simply, the gender gap disappeared or even reversed when the measure of political knowledge turned to the more "practical" aspects of the concept, such as benefits and services, rather than the mere recall of names.

Previous studies I've pointed to have shown women do better when they're asked about politicians or public figures who happen to be female rather than all male.  Also men tend to guess more than women, so they often get it right while women are more likely to say "don't know."  Depending on how you code your political knowledge index, this can make a difference.

But this latest study is interesting in that it looks at the kinds of knowledge.  And the authors also explore the consequences in terms of voting to the political left or right.  Neat stuff both from a methodological perspective and, I suppose, if you're a feminist scholar.

What Women Know

I've blogged before about research that attempts to explain why women consistently do less well on tests of political knowledge than men. There's a new study in Political Behavior that takes another stab at the question.  This one finds much of the difference can be explained in differences between men and women in the strongest predictors of political knowledge, such as education.

Beyond that, the author also looks at belonging to groups and how differences might emerge between men and women.  It's kinda neat and something I've never given any thought to.  The author notes:

Perhaps the more intriguing finding is that group membership affects the acquisition of political knowledge differently for men and women. Women clearly benefit from belonging to groups in ways that men do not. This suggests there are important, gender-based, differences in the effects of social setting and environment on civic engagement.

I also found it interesting that buried in a table is a significant effect on number of children, depending on the sex of the respondent.  For women, more children equals a lower political knowledge score.  For men, there is no statistically significant relationship.  It's hardly surprising given who does the heavy lifting in the home, especially with the kids, but I'd never seen that one before in an analysis.  Fun area to explore.