Political Role Models for Adolescents: Is There a Difference Between Male and Female Adolescents?

Political role models for adolescents: Is there a difference between male and female adolescents? Young people’s engagement with formal politics is increasingly worrying. Especially girls tend to show less political involvement than boys (Jennings, 1982; Venkatesha, 2018; Dowse & Hughes, 1971). Some studies have suggested that this gender gap might be related to the under-representation of women in the formal political arena. Indeed, multiple studies show that female politicians, as descriptive representatives, can act as political role models for other women and that an increase in women’s political presence can have a positive impact on girls’ political involvement (Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2017). At the same time, however, the link between the presence of women in formal politics and the political involvement of girls is not straightforward, and many questions regarding the ‘role model effect’ remain unanswered. Current research for instance mostly focuses on the US context, which raises the question as to whether similar conclusions can be drawn for European contexts. A second question is whether a role model effect can first and foremost be expected from female elected politicians, whose life experiences might still be far removed from those of young girls. Young people might especially look for role models ‘close to home’ (for instance, in the family) or in the informal political sphere (for instance, Greta Thunberg or Malala Yousafzai); these role models, however, remain understudied. And thirdly, a focus on same-sex role models in previous research does not shed sufficient light on the role played by male role models, or the question whether similar role model effects can be identified for boys. In this paper, we therefore suggest a new inductive approach to study the gendered nature of political role models. More precisely we ask: (1) Who do female and male adolescents identify as their political role models, and why, (2) how is the previous gendered, and (3) how does the association with different role models influence the political involvement of female and male adolescents? In order to answer these questions, we will organise 6 focus groups with male adolescents and 6 focus groups with female adolescents.