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The Seat of Tradition?: The Political Socialization of Girls in Rural America

Studies of gender gaps in political socialization have not examined variations across contexts. Conventional wisdom holds that rural America is the seat of tradition, the last bastion of traditional gender roles. We should expect, then, where there are gender differences in political socialization, girls in rural areas and small towns would be more disadvantaged than their peers in the suburbs and in urban areas. This study demonstrates that all else equal, girls have higher levels of political knowledge in non-metro areas than in metropolitan areas. I examine three main hypotheses. First, a growing body of literature suggests that ethnic diversity depresses many aspects of civic engagement and social capital. The findings indicate that young people in the ethnically diverse rural communities are less knowledgeable than their counterparts in homogeneous communities. However, girls in the ethnically diverse communities are just as knowledgeable as boys, but in the homogeneous towns, girls score significantly lower on the test of knowledge. Further, drawing on the distinction between role models and ideological inclinations as precursors to political attitudes, I find that although mothers’ occupations are unrelated to knowledge, girls’ concern for equality is significantly related to knowledge. Girls who believe we should be more concerned about equality are substantially more knowledgeable than their counterparts.