Differences in knowledge about politics between men and women have the potential to affect political discussion. We examine differences in the perception of political knowledge between men and women and the effects these differences have on how often men and women talk about politics. We find both men and women perceive women to be less knowledgeable about politics and men to be more knowledgeable, regardless of the actual level of knowledge each discussion partner holds. This perceptual knowledge gap could have ramifications for discussion as political participation, since people turn to those they perceive to be experts to gather political information.
Beck, Paul Allen.1991. Voter’s intermediation environments in the 1988 presidential contest. Public Opinion Quarterly55 (3): 371-94.
2.
Burns, Nancy.2002. Gender: Public opinion and political action. In The state of the discipline III, ed. Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner.Washington, DC: American Political Science Association .
3.
Burns, Nancy, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney Verba.2001. The private roots of public action: Gender, equality, and political participation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
4.
Conover, Pamela Johnston, Donald Searing, and Ivor Crewe.2002. The deliberative potential of political discussion. British Journal of Political Science32 (1): 21-62.
5.
Cramer Walsh, Katherine.2004. Talking about politics: Informal groups and social identity in American life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
6.
Delli Carpini, Michael, and Scott Keeter.1996. What Americans know about politics and why it matters. New Haven: Yale University Press.
7.
---. 1993. Measuring political knowledge: Putting first things first. American Journal of Political Science37 (4): 1179-1206.
8.
Fishkin, James.1992. Democracy and deliberation: New directions for democratic reform. New Haven: Yale University Press.
9.
Hansen, Susan.1997. Talking about politics: Gender and contextual effects on political proselytizing. Journal of Politics59 (1): 73-103.
10.
Huckfeldt, Robert.2001. The social communication of political expertise. American Journal of Political Science45 (2): 425-38.
11.
Huckfeldt, Robert, Paul Johnson, and John Sprague.2004. Political disagreement: The survival of diverse opinions within communication networks. New York: Cambridge University Press.
12.
Huckfeldt, Robert, and John Sprague.1995. Citizens, politics, and social communication . New York: Cambridge University Press.
13.
Huckfeldt, Robert, John Sprague, and Jeffrey Levine.2000. The dynamics of collective deliberation in the 1996 election: Campaign effects on accessibility, certainty, and accuracy . American Political Science Review94 (3): 641-51.
14.
Huddy, Leonie, and Nayda Terkildsen .1993. Gender stereotypes and the perception of male and female candidates. American Journal of Political Science37 (1): 119-47.
15.
Long, J. Scott.1997. Regression models for categorical and limited dependent variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .
16.
Miller, Robert, Rick Wilford, and Freda Donoghue.1999. Personal dynamics as political participation . Political Research Quarterly52 (2): 269-92.
17.
Mondak, Jeffrey.2001. Developing valid knowledge scales. American Journal of Political Science45 (1): 224-38.
18.
Mondak, Jeffrey, and Mary Anderson.2004. The knowledge gap: A reexamination of gender-based differences in political knowledge. Journal of Politics66 (2): 492-512.
19.
Mutz, Diana.2002. Cross-cutting social networks: Testing democratic theory in practice. American Political Science Review96 (1): 111-26.
20.
Plutzer, Eric, and John Zipp.1996. Identity politics, partisanship, and voting for women candidates. Public Opinion Quarterly60 (1): 30-57.
21.
Sanbonmatsu, Kira.2002. Gender stereotypes and vote choice. American Journal of Political Science46 (1): 20-34.
22.
Sapiro, Virginia.1983. The political integration of women. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
23.
Seltzer, Richard, Jody Newman, and Melissa Voorhees Leighton.1997. Sex as a political variable. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner .
24.
Shapiro, Robert, and Harpreet Majahan .1986. Gender differences in policy preferences: A summary of trends from the 1960s to the 1980s. Public Opinion Quarterly50 (1): 42-61.
25.
Verba, Sidney, Nancy Burns, and Kay Lehman Schlozman .1997. Knowing and caring about politics: Gender and political engagement. Journal of Politics59 (4): 1051-72.
