Increased participation of women from diverse backgrounds in political leadership roles fosters inclusive democracies that respond better to the needs of all social groups. Nevertheless, girls and young women are sometimes excluded from political leadership due, in part, to a lack of confidence in their political skills referred to in the literature as political self-efficacy. Recent studies showed that adolescent girls, on average, have higher level of political knowledge and skills than boys and at the same time girls on average have lower levels of confidence in these same competences than boys. This difference remains even when controlling for background characteristics (socioeconomic status and ethnicity). In order to bring more women into political leadership it is necessary to identifying factors that help reduce the confidence gap. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of studies identifying factors that enable girls who are competent in political knowledge and skills to be confident in their abilities.
In this study, we examine contributing factors both inside and outside school towards girls’ confidence in knowledge and skills on politics. Concerning inside school, we test an open classroom discussion both at the individual level, and also the presence of an open classroom climate for all students at the school level. Outside-school factors tested include political interest of parents and participation in a religion. The paper tests the above factors predicting when girls’ political self-confidence is high and comparable with their level of competence on 30,627 girls aged 14 across 19 European countries using the IEA international citizenship and civic education study (ICCS) from 2009. This dataset is used as it is the only comparative data source containing measures on political self-efficacy and knowledge and skills on politics.
The analysis conducted is multilevel logistic regression and located scaling models. Preliminary findings show that, after controlling for levels of knowledge and social-economic and demographic characteristics, the home-environment matters, in particular the mother, as measured by interest in politics. In addition, having a religion and religious participation are also associated with a higher degree of confidence in politics. In-school factors also matter. On an individual level, the perception of an open classroom climate contributes to the prediction of confident girls. At the class level, it is not so much the average degree of openness of class climate, but rather the spread of this experience that contributes to self-confidence: a small spread with a high average (i.e. a class in which everyone shares that perception) is positively associated with self-confidence. The findings will be discussed in relationship to the literature on the learning of political self-efficacy.
