Gender Differences in the Effect of an Open Classroom Climate at School on the Development of Political Self-Efficacy

Decades of research show a persistent gender gap in party politics and political ambition or willingness to run for office (Burns et al., 2001; Campbell et al., 1980; Lawless & Fox, 2010). When it comes to political efficacy, scholars have shown that women are more likely to feel that they do not have the skills or abilities to influence the political realm or communicate their own political preferences in the US and Canada (Bennett, 1997; Gidengil et al., 2008). In Europe, data from the European Social Survey shows a substantive gap in internal political efficacy across 23 countries that persist after controlling for the typical socioeconomic resources (Fraile and de Miguel 2019). Yet at the same time little research has been performed to understand how gender differences in political self-efficacy are developed or learned. Identifying the role of school is important as with universal education provision, at least in Europe, this institution provides a possible policy lever to create change and to reduce the gender gap. In addition, scholarship on civic education in schools has shown repeatedly that an open classroom climate acts as a catalyst for acquiring political knowledge and (as a determinant of) internal political self-efficacy (Hoskins et al 2021; Hoskins, Janmaat, & Villalba, 2012). Using the Citizenship Education Longitudinal study data from England on young people between the ages of 11-16, this paper addresses 3 questions. Is there a gender gap in perceptions of access to an open classroom climate? Does an open classroom climate have the same positive effect for boys and girls? And does the classroom composition (proportion of each sex) matter? The panel structure of the data allows the possibility for analysing the effect on an open classroom climate on levels of internal political efficacy controlling by previous levels of this same measure from the year before. The results of multilevel linear regression model show that perceptions of the classroom climate do not differ but that the experience of the open climate has a large positive effect for boys only. Girls experience a negative effect from an open classroom climate on their levels of political-self efficacy when in the same class with boys; and when girls are taught by themselves, the experience has no effect on their levels of political self-efficacy. The results will be explained using social cognitive learning theory (Bussey and Bandura 1999) and implications for classroom and teaching practice discussed.