This article was downloaded by: [Florida Atlantic University]On: 22 January 2014, At: 05:54Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Political Science EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/upse20

Making it Personal: Assessing the Impactof In-Class Exercises on Closing theGender Gap in Political AmbitionJill S. Greenlee a , Mirya R. Holman b & Rachel VanSickle-Ward ca Brandeis Universityb Florida Atlantic Universityc Pitzer CollegePublished online: 21 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Jill S. Greenlee , Mirya R. Holman & Rachel VanSickle-Ward (2014) Making itPersonal: Assessing the Impact of In-Class Exercises on Closing the Gender Gap in Political Ambition,Journal of Political Science Education, 10:1, 48-61, DOI: 10.1080/15512169.2013.859083

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2013.859083

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

48

Journal of Political Science Education, 10:48–61, 2014Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1551-2169 print/1551-2177 onlineDOI: 10.1080/15512169.2013.859083

Making it Personal: Assessing the Impact of In-Class Exercises on Closing the Gender Gap in

Political Ambition

JILL S. GREENLEE

Brandeis University

MIRYA R. HOLMAN

Florida Atlantic University

RACHEL VANSICKLE-WARD

Pitzer College

There is evidence that some obstacles to women running for political office emerge early in the political development of women and girls. Lawless and Fox (2005) iden-tify several reasons for lower political ambition among women relative to men. Among their explanations are that girls are less likely to be engaged in political conversations in their childhood homes than are boys, and women receive less encouragement to run for office by family members and friends. While it is unclear what interventions may help close the ambition gap, research suggests some avenues for change. We consider how to use the classroom as a place to encourage female college students to reflect on their own potential as candidates. We detail and test two ways in which instructors can offer students opportunities to learn about the ambition gap and to consider their own possible political future. On balance, our findings demonstrate that classroom exercises that expose students to women in political office, coupled with literature and discussion that contextualizes those individuals’ experiences, encourage greater self-reported political ambition, particularly among female students. Moreover, we find this positive outcome in both small seminars and large lecture courses.

Keywords classroom exercise, gender, political ambition, political leadership

Introduction

One key feature of political actors in the United States is the relative lack of female political candidates and public officials. Women currently hold 16.8% of U.S. Congressional seats, 23% of statewide executive offices, and they occupy less than 24% of state legislative seats (Center for American Women and Politics [CAWP] 2012a). Candidate numbers are also far from reaching parity: In 2012, female candi-dates set a record by running in just over half of the U.S. Senate races, while women ran for 46.67% of the seats in the House of Representatives (CAWP 2012b). This leaves only men seeking more than half of all Congressional seats; in addition, only

Address correspondence to Mirya R. Holman, Florida Atlantic University, 384 Social Science Building, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33444. E-mail: mholman5@fau.edu

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

Making it Personal 49

58 of these elections involved women running against other women. As such, at a minimum, a male candidate will run in 87% of all Congressional races.1 Scholars have identified that a political ambition gap, or the gap in political ambition between men and women, is partially responsible for the low levels of female political repre-sentation (Costantini 1990; Fox and Lawless 2005, 2010; Fulton et al. 2006; Lawless and Fox 2005, 2010). The research presented here evaluates the potential role of the classroom in encouraging women’s political ambition and interest in serving in political office. We conduct exercises in different classroom settings (two small upper level seminars and one large-lecture class), compare the results between the venues and articulate the pros and cons of each. From this analysis, we draw conclusions on how reflecting on political ambition can shape the students’ own political ambition and views on the gendered nature of politics more generally. On balance, our find-ings demonstrate that classroom exercises that expose students to women in political office, when coupled with literature and discussion that contextualizes individual experiences, inspires greater political ambition, particularly among female students. Moreover, our results illustrate that this positive outcome can be accomplished both through small, discussion-intensive seminars and through large, lecture-based courses.

Uncovering the gender gap in political leadership and political participation pro-duces important and fruitful research in political science. Scholars have only just begun to establish the origins of this inequality, often finding that the mechanisms at work are complex and challenging to remedy. One recent contribution to this literature comes from Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox. In their book, It Takes a Candidate (2005) and the follow-up, It Still Takes a Candidate (2010), the authors identify the gap in political ambition between women and men as one key reason for the tremendous disparity between the number of women and men who hold elected office. Society socializes women, they argue, in such a way that they do not consider themselves viable political candidates. One source of this is their upbringing: Women, compared to men, report that they engage less in political discussions as children and were less likely to discuss politics with their fathers (2005, 55). Law less and Fox argue that this contributes to a pattern of socialization that communicates to women that politics is a “man’s game.” Moreover, as adults, women are less likely to experience encouragement to run for office by their family and friends. The absence of personal support and encouragement is highly consequential to women’s potential candida-cies. Lawless and Fox (2005, 2010) report that receiving encouragement to run for office greatly increases an individual’s likelihood of running for office (about 45 per-centage points); this means that the absence of such support significantly depresses the likelihood of women running for office (2005, 70). These two important factors—the absence of political engagement in childhood and the lower levels of personal support in adulthood—contribute to women’s reticence to consider themselves as candidates.

What can promote women to engage in politics and to encourage them to con-sider putting their hat in the ring? Prior research has shown the benefits of political role models for girls and young women. Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) find that when female political leaders attain greater national visibility through the media, girls engage in political discussions more frequently and, therefore, are more likely to report increased levels of anticipated political involvement. Similar findings also emerge from research examining the impact of female candidates on adult female political engage-ment (Atkeson 2003; Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; Hansen 1997).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

50 J. S. Greenlee et al.

These findings suggest that exposure to female political candidates or office hold-ers connect women to the political process in a unique way and possibly alter the mis-perception that politics is just for men. Further, it may be the case that encouraging women to run for office in any context helps to combat the deficit of personal support that prospective candidates often find among family as friends. Taken together, these potential remedies suggest that the classroom may be an appropriate place to begin the work of closing the ambition gap.

While it is unclear what interventions may help reduce the disparities between women and men when it comes to running for office, there is some evidence that uni-versities can play a successful role in encouraging women to pursue public service. Leanne Doherty of Simmons College constructed an internship program in con-junction with the Barbara Lee Foundation2 that placed female college students in the offices of female legislators in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Massachusetts Senate (Doherty 2011). The program, which began in 2004, helped young women more clearly envision their own role in the political world. Surveying alums of the program, 87% of the 57 alumnae responded that the internship program had made them more likely to consider a career in public office. For many of the par-ticipants, the internship changed their perception of the political world and their own sense of political potential.

We believe that some of the benefits that emerged from the Simmons College internship program can be applied in a much less resource-intensive classroom expe-rience. In this article, we consider ways to use the classroom as a place to encourage female college students to reflect on their own potential as political candidates. We see two key ways in which instructors can offer students the opportunity to learn about the ambition gap and to consider their own possible political future. First, students learn about the political ambition gap and write reflections on the gendered nature of the ambition gap. Second, students either write a short paper and complete a presenta-tion based on an interview with a woman who has held or currently holds public office, or students watch a detailed presentation, followed by a question-and-answer period, by a woman in local politics. These two activities present students with the chance to examine how general findings in political science relate to the specific experiences of women who have held public office, as well as to think carefully about their own personal goals. We hypothesize that they will boost self-reported interest in running for political office among female students.

In the remainder of this article, we offer a more detailed description of the class-rooms in which we collected data, the assignments, the data collection tools, and finally our analysis of student responses that reflect on the assignments. We close by offering summary remarks on our findings and a short discussion of how we might better assess the effectiveness of this classroom intervention.

Settings and Exercises

We conducted these classroom exercises as part of three courses on women and poli-tics at two universities and one liberal arts college in the fall semester of 2011 and the spring semester of 2012.3 Two of the courses were elective upper level seminars. These seminars were small in size, ranging from 5 to 12 students. The professors struc-tured the 3-hour seminar that met once a week to include at least one full hour of classroom discussion of the course material. In addition to in-class discussions, the students frequently wrote short reaction papers on the readings, submitting them to

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

Making it Personal 51

the professors before the class meeting. In contrast, this study also includes one large class with 60 students that met twice a week. The class primarily included lectures by the professor, with some classroom discussion, small-group work, and the use of a classroom response system (iClickers). The class was a political science elective and met a requirement for students seeking a minor in the university’s women’s studies program. Twelve of the students in the course were listed as seeking a women’s stud-ies minor; only six of the students seeking a women’s studies minor were not politi-cal science majors. The institutional review board at all three colleges approved the assessment.

Including the exercises in both seminar and lecture settings offers several advantages. First, the combined results afford a larger data set (72 students in total) than the seminar classes alone. The lecture class includes a much a larger proportion of men (approximately 40% of the class), allowing for comparison between genders. The combined courses also yield different samples; while the small seminars draw pri-marily from political science majors, the larger lecture course pulls in students focused on women’s studies. It bears noting that in both cases these samples are self-selected, a limitation we will revisit in the conclusion. In addition, the smaller seminar classes afford opportunities for additional in-depth discussion and more intricate versions of the exercises. As we will explain later, having more complex exercises has particular implications for the effects of exposure to a woman in elective office.

The instructors designed the two exercises to help students think critically about their own interest in politics and the political path of another woman. In the first exer-cise, students wrote reflections on the gendered nature of the ambition gap. They did this after reading work by Lawless and Fox that shows there are social, institutional, and psychological barriers that women face, all of which discourage many women from wanting to run.4 In the seminar setting, the students engaged in an hour-long discussion of the book. In this discussion, they summarized Lawless and Fox’s find-ings, offered critiques of the methodology and shared their reactions to the book’s conclusions. In the lecture course, the students read the Fox and Lawless article. The professor lectured on the basics of the idea of an eligibility pool and gatekeepers and then led a 40-minute classroom discussion on the idea of the ambition gap. The professor informed the students that the midterm exam, which took place a week following the class, would include a question where the students would evaluate the ambition gap.

In the second exercise, the students in the seminars completed an assignment that required them to find a woman who had run for political office previously and to conduct an interview with that person. The students were responsible for writing a paper based on that interview and offering a presentation to the class. In the paper and presentation, the students briefly described their interviewee and then discussed her political experience in light of the Lawless and Fox findings. Interviewees included women who had held or had run for a number of elected positions at the state and local levels. Some examples include members of the Massachusetts State House, cur-rent and former members of the California Assembly, members of local school boards and city councils, a former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives who also was the state Senate President, a district judge, and a candidate for mayor. The goal here was for each student to hear firsthand one woman’s political experience and then contextualize that experience in the aggregate-level findings on the ambition gap.

Given the logistical constraints of requiring these interviews in a larger class, the lecture class used an alternate exercise. In this case, a female state senator gave a guest

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

52 J. S. Greenlee et al.

lecture, during which she discussed her path to office. The instructor asked the speaker to address why she ran for office and the challenges and successes she has had in office. The speaker presented for 20 minutes, answered questions for an additional 30 minutes and then participated in a classroom discussion about women in office for the final 30 minutes of class. The professor reminded students of the speaker for several weeks prior to the event, including that material from that day of class would appear on the final exam.

Data Collection Tools

In an effort to estimate the impact of these assignments, we conducted a content anal-ysis of written responses assigned throughout the semester. In order to first calculate a baseline of student attitudes toward seeking political office, we analyzed a written reflection administered before engaging in discussion of the ambition gap. To calcu-late this baseline score, all of the students submitted a required reflection piece that reacted to some variation of the following prompt (Baseline):

This week, I would like you to reflect on your own potential as a political candidate. Would you consider running for office? If so, why and what office would you consider pursuing? If not, why not? What do you think would make you qualified and/or what would pose challenges? Why would you like to hold that office? What credentials do you think you would need to pursue that office? What issues would you like to focus on? Your response should be three to five paragraphs.

We then analyzed student reflections on reading and discussing the ambition gap as articulated by Lawless and Fox (referred to as Exercise 1). Following the reading and discussion of Lawless and Fox (2005) or Fox and Lawless (2010), the students in the small seminars submitted reading responses that reacted to some variation of the fol-lowing prompt (Reflection on Exercise 1 [Post-Lawless and Fox reading], small classes):

In light of the Lawless and Fox reading we discussed in class, I would like you to further reflect on your own potential as a political candidate. Would you consider running for office? If so, why and what office would you con-sider pursuing? What do you think would make you qualified? Why would you like to hold that office? What credentials do you think you would need to pursue that office?

Students submitted these reflections to the professor directly, rather than posting them on the class Web site as is the typical protocol. We used this approach to increase the comfort level of students who might have felt self-conscious about stating lofty political goals or who felt reticent to state that they had no intention of running for political office. In the large class, students answered the following ques-tion (Reflection on Exercise 1 [Post-Lawless and Fox reading], large class) on the midterm exam:

What is the ambition gap? What effect does the ambition gap have on the number of women in politics? After learning about the ambition gap between men and women in class, do you think differently about your role

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

Making it Personal 53

in the political arena? Do you think that you will take any steps toward closing this gap? If so, what are those steps?

The instructor graded responses for the student’s grasp of the definition and effect of the ambition gap. We then used the responses from the small and large classes to evaluate whether learning about the ambition gap led to an increase in interest in run-ning for office.

Finally, to assess whether the projects/speakers had any impact on the students’ attitudes toward running for office (also referred to as Exercise 2), the professors asked students the following (Reflection on Exercise 2 [Postinterview], small classes):

This week, I would like you to reflect on the experience of interviewing a woman who had run for public office. Did the interview change your own interest in running for office? Did learning about one person’s experi-ence make you more comfortable with the idea of running for office in the future? Less comfortable? How so?

Again, students submitted responses on this exercise directly to the professor to encourage an honest reaction to the experience. In the large class, students gave their response to the speaker through a question on the final exam (Reflection on Exercise 2 [Postinterview], large class):

Discuss something that Senator [name removed] mentioned that fits with what we have learned in this class. Back up your connection with clear evidence from class or the readings. Discuss something that she men-tioned that you do not feel meshes with what we have discussed in class. Did Senator [name removed] change your own interest in running for office? Did learning about one person’s experience make you more com-fortable with the idea of running for office in the future? Less comfort-able? How so?

We then used the responses to Exercise 2 to assess whether the interview assignment may have changed students’ attitudes about running for public office in the future and, if so, if this change was positive or negative.

Assessment of Student Feedback

While the assignments have the potential to inspire students to consider a run for public office (a positive impact), they also have the potential to disillusion the stu-dents, thereby dampening their political ambitions (a negative impact). As a result, we coded student responses to assess not simply how students reacted to the assign-ments but the direction of that reaction as well. We categorize the responses as posi-tive, negative, or neutral/mixed/not applicable/no change. Two coders independently coded a subset of each exercise. We tested our coding scheme through intercoder reliability for 10 students (or about 14% of the data set) across all three catego-ries. The results yielded 70% perfect agreement (Pearson’s r of .78) for the baseline; 90% perfect agreement (Pearson’s r of .87) for Exercise 1; and 90% perfect agree-ment (Pearson’s r of .80) for Exercise 2. For further discussion of the coding scheme, please see Appendix 1.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

54 J. S. Greenlee et al.

From the baseline responses, we gauge initial attitudes toward running for office. The baseline thus serves as an imperfect type of pretest in measuring political ambi-tion.5 Of the total 72 students, 11 students (15%) framed their discussion with neu-tral or mixed terminology, 25 (35%) were largely positive, and 33 (46%) were largely negative. Figure 1 provides the summary data on the positive, negative, and neutral responses for the baseline, Exercise 1, and Exercise 2.

Some of the responses either adopt a modest frame “I can only imagine myself pursuing a local political office” (emphasis added) or present running as a last resort “I can only see myself running after a few years of practicing child law and becom-ing disappointed in the amount of change I’m creating.” Others reject the idea of running outright: “I have no aspirations to pursue a political office.” In some cases, respondents directly linked their lack of ambition to their gender: “I do not want to run for office because I want to have a family with kids and that seems really impos-sible for women in politics.” A few students expressed a firm commitment to running for office:

I have every intention of someday running for office. That’s the reason I became a politics major. It’s the ambition that drives me in my academic, professional and personal decisions.

And some expressed this desire to run for office as if it were a dark secret to be con-fessed: “I have always wanted to run for elected office. There. I said it.”

If the initial reflection served as a type of pretest, then the later reflections serve as posttests after the treatments of the interview assignment/guest speaker and class discussion of Lawless and Fox. We coded these reflections to gauge change in interest in/comfort with seeking political office. Regarding responses to the question about their own role in the political arena after learning about the ambition gap identified by Lawless and Fox (2005), just over half the students (36) reported no change or a mixed reaction. Of those who reported a change, the vast majority (29 students out of 35 students) expressed higher levels of interest follow-ing Exercise 1. They represented 43% of all the students in the study. As one student

Figure 1. Student assessment: all responses.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

Making it Personal 55

explained, learning about the ambition gap helped her to reflect on her own role in the political sphere:

Learning about the ambition gap did in fact affect how I think about my role in the political arena. It marked the first time I ever seriously considered running for political office in the future. It also made me want to help close this gap.

Notably, this student stated that she was unlikely to run for political office in the ear-lier assignment. Another student stated that learning about the ambition gap helped her see that becoming a political candidate was a realistic goal:

Yes, running for office became more of a possibility for me. While I have thought about it before, it always seemed like something I could never do.

Another student wrote that learning about the ambition gap helped her to aim higher in her political ambitions:

Surprisingly, my feelings regarding running for office have changed since I last wrote this reflection. I say “surprisingly” because I thought that I would never run for a position past school board but recently I have been considering the position of city council member.

Each student linked these positive changes to what she had learned in class. Interestingly, comparing the seminar setting to the lecture yields little difference in the response to the Lawless and Fox readings.

When asked if and how the interview changed the students’ interest in running for office, the responses were evenly divided between those who reported an increased interest in running for office and those who reported no change or a mixed reaction (49% and 48%, respectively). Considering the frequently negative views expressed in the baseline assignment, that 49% who reported elevated interest is a noteworthy find-ing. Also of note, the reports of a positive change sometimes took the form of a more optimistic view of accomplishing ones goals through political involvement:

[A]fter interviewing [my subject] I now realize that passion for helping the individual can be extended to the political world. With realizing this idea, I would consider running [for office].

Another student spoke of being inspired by her interviewee: “[T]he individual I talked to had such a positive experience that I feel very encouraged … it gave me hope.” Students expressed positive reactions in response to the speaker as well. One student stated, “She proved that women can win political office even if they don’t have support from their party.” Another said simply, “It just makes me feel if she can do it, than [sic] so can I.”

Some student responses also reflected ambivalence with regard to how interviewing a current or former female office holder made them feel. Said one student: “The interview made me more interested in holding local office but also less comfortable with the ideal of running and my prospects of winning.” For this particular student, campaigning for office seemed quite intimidating; yet, she con-cluded that serving her community would be very fulfilling. She added, “I would love to be a role model to people, especially young women.” Finally, in addition

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

56 J. S. Greenlee et al.

to the positive and mixed reactions, two respondents reported that the interview/speaker gave her a more negative outlook. A negative reaction was, by far, the least common response.

Not surprisingly, we see more of a difference here (relative to Exercise 1) in com-paring the seminar results to the lecture class results. A slight majority of seminar students (9 students or 53% of all students) indicated that they were more likely to run after they interviewed a candidate or elected official. The corresponding positive reaction to the guest speaker in the lecture class constitutes 44% of the students in total. That said, the negative response was smaller in the lecture class: 2% of students reported less interest in running, compared to 6% in the seminar setting. Most impor-tantly, the positive response in both classes dramatically outweighed the negative in both contexts. In sum, while an interview assignment may have been more enriching for students and had a stronger effect on their interest in running for office, the evi-dence suggests that a speaker can also have a positive if slightly more limited effect. Thus, for large or introductory classes when the interview assignment is prohibitively intensive, the guest speaker option is a promising one.

We also generated a measure that compares each student’s change from the base-line to the reading and postinterview or speaker to see the level of individual change. Figure 2 provides a summary of the individual-level change from the baseline to the postinterview and reading response.

Just over half the students (51%) provided evidence of positive change from the baseline to the end of the class, and a nearly half (46%) increased their interest in serving in political office after responding in Exercise 1 to Fox and Lawless’s work. Very few students became more negative in their evaluations, either after the reading response (19%) or after the interview/speaker (13%). The remainder (35% after the reading, 25% after the interview/speaker) did not change their attitudes. It is impor-tant to note here that these are measures of change from the beginning to the end—these measures fail to capture what the starting point of the student was in political ambition. To rectify this, we quantified the responses so that negative ones meant a negative outlook or negative change, zero equaled no change or a mixed/neutral response, and one meant a positive outlook or change.

Figure 3 presents the average level of interest in serving, by the baseline, read-ing, or interview/speaker. This produces a mean level of interest in political office; for example, the baseline mean level of interest of −0.132 suggests that the students, on average, had a slightly more negative than neutral overall assessment of running

Figure 2. Change in level of interest.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

Making it Personal 57

for political office. Following Exercise 2, however, the students averaged just less than 0.456, or an overall neutral-to-positive evaluation of running for political office. We also provide the information broken down by class type. The statistical results pre-sent an interesting story: The effect of the readings by Lawless and Fox appear to be much stronger than the impact of the interview or guest speaker. As we observe in the responses, the effect of the reading either lasted throughout the semester or reinforced by the interview/guest speaker. Quantitative analysis confirms these find-ings: The differences between the baseline and reading responses and the baseline and postinterview responses are statistically significant, while the difference between the reading and interview does not reach significance. Figure 4 provides the average change between the baseline and two assessments, plus the statistical significance of each difference.

Despite the positive impact of these exercises, captured both as a percentage of the students who reported positive change and as an increase in the mean level of interest in running for political office, a fair number of students experienced no change in their perspective with regard to political ambition. There are three potential rea-sons for this. First, a small subset of students came into the class with a desire to run for office and left the class with that desire intact. The assignments served to inform preexisting goals, helping the students see potential challenges and the global importance of their personal aspirations, but it did not change their position direc-tionally. Second, a larger portion of students indicated ambivalence about running for office at the outset of the course, and this ambivalence remained even after the class exercises. One possible explanation is that low levels of political and social trust among these students serve as obstacles for motivating greater political ambition. For many

Figure 3. Average level of interest by assessment point.

Figure 4. Change and significance of change in ambition.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

58 J. S. Greenlee et al.

decades, younger voters have lagged behind older voters on levels of trust as a result of generational replacement—cohorts socialized after 1960 had lower levels of politi-cal trust and subsequently replaced older cohorts with higher levels of trust (Rahn 1995; Rahn and Transue 1998). In addition, a recent Pew study indicates that levels of political cynicism are high across multiple generations, including among today’s youth (Keeter et al. 2002). Thus, we suspect that even a politically engaged group of students enrolled in a course on gender and politics bears the generational mark of low trust and high cynicism. Finally, we believe that even in the face of a teaching exercise that makes visible the gendered obstacles to women’s electoral ambitions, many female students remain daunted by the prospect of setting this professional goal in the face of their personal goals. Specifically, more than one female student stated that her desire to have a family complicated any possibility of political aspirations. These students see an incompatibility between political leadership and raising a family of their own, and this acts to maintain their ambivalence.

Assessing Differences between Genders

We also evaluate whether these differences change based on the gender of the student. After all, the primary purpose of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of these treat-ments on the political ambition of female students. To do so, we use the quantified measure and divide the results by gender. We find clear evidence for the efficacy of the reading response on the political ambition of female students and not on male students. Female students start with a lower level of political ambition than their male counterparts do (although the difference is not statistically significant) and increase to a higher final level of political ambition than do their male counterparts (just outside statistical significance).6 Looking at the change from baseline to reading response, female students gain two-thirds a point of change compared to a third of a point for male students. By the end of the class, the rate of change among female students is more than three and half times (0.77 on a 3-point scale) that of the rate of change of male students (0.21 on a 3-point scale). In essence, women change from neutral- negative to positive-neutral, while the male students change from neutral to neutral-slightly positive. Figures 3 and 4 provide evidence of the different influence of the experiences on women versus men.

On balance, these findings indicate that, consistent with our initial hypothesis, classroom exercises that expose students to women in political office, as well as to liter-ature and discussion that contextualizes those individuals’ experiences, have the poten-tial to help close the ambition gap among college students. Our results show that both small, discussion-intensive seminars as well as larger, lecture-based courses achieve this positive outcome. Importantly, we find that assigning and discussing political sci-ence scholarship that tackles the ambition gap head-on can produce greater interest in running for political office among female students in addition to generating greater awareness that the ambition gap exists. These benefits consolidate when students then have an opportunity to interview or hear from a female office holder.

These classroom exercises have the potential to change the outlook of female students in particular as the gains that we observe are greater among women as com-pared to men. Considering that we focused the exercises on promoting female partici-pation and encouraging women to run, this is not a surprising result. However, given the gender gap in political ambition motivating this investigation, it is an encouraging finding. While male students may have benefited, the self-reflection exercises, the schol-arship discussed in class, and the exposure to a role model in the form of an interviewee

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

Making it Personal 59

or guest speaker apparently resonated more with female students. It is heartening that these exercises tend to encourage both genders, but it is especially encouraging that women are particularly inspired. In addition, our qualitative finding that many of the male students, upon reflection, expressed interest in encouraging their female friends and family members to run for office suggests that there may be downstream effects from such classroom activities. Moreover, although we do not explore it explicitly here, there is some evidence that exposure to women in positions of political power pro-motes more positive perceptions among men of women’s leadership abilities (Beaman et al. 2009). We therefore believe that exercises like this one are relevant in a coeduca-tional environment and are important for male students as well as women.

Conclusion

The findings that we present here offer early, yet very useful, insights into how instruc-tors can use the classroom as a venue to both increase awareness of the gendered ambi-tion gap and to begin to close it. We recognize the limits in drawing concrete conclusions given the small sample size, the lack of controlled environment and a control group, self-section bias, the possible inclination of students to report a positive reaction in order to please the professor, and the nonlongitudinal nature of this study. Nevertheless, we think the findings reported here are promising. Early interventions with regard to encouraging young women to engage in politics and to run for office are critical to clos-ing the gendered ambition gap. We see that college courses not only equip students with skills and knowledge but also can serve to bolster the confidence of students and are an excellent place to do that work. Indeed, we hope to reach young men and women across a broader population by running one or both of these interventions in a more general political science class, like an American Government class or Campaigns and Elections. In these classes, the lack of explicit emphasis on women and politics might decrease selection bias and produce a purer evaluation of the effect of learning about political ambition and the experiences of running for political office on female students.

We acknowledge that the results from this assessment may be temporary. Additional research might include follow-up interviews with the students in these classes down the road to determine if the boost to political ambition lasts beyond the classroom setting. Another possibility is tracking students to see if any engage in posi-tive actions (such as running for student government positions, interning in political offices, and seeking additional training or education related to political service) aimed at serving in public office. Understanding the substantive effects of classroom activi-ties on behavior postcollege would provide further clues towards understanding and rectifying the gender gap in political service.

Appendix: Coding Schemes for Exercise 1 and Exercise 2

Coding Scheme

Baseline (Initial Running for Office Prompt)Answers to each prompt should be categorized as positive, negative, or mixed/neutral/no change according to the following:

• Positive: Indicates interest in/positive feelings toward running for office;• Negative: indicates Disinterest/negative feelings toward running for office;• Neutral/mixed: Does not indicate feelings either way or expresses an equal number

of positive and negative sentiments.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

60 J. S. Greenlee et al.

Exercise 1 (Post-Lawless and Fox Evaluation)Answers to each prompt should be categorized as positive, negative, or mixed/neutral/no change according to the following:

• Positive change: More likely to run, more interested in/comfortable with running;• Negative change: Less likely to run, less interested in/comfortable with running;• Mixed/neutral/no change: Reports no change in interest, does not indicate feelings

either way or expresses an equal number of positive and negative sentiments.

Exercise 2 (Post-Class Visit/Interview Evaluation)Answers to each prompt should be categorized as predominately positive, negative, or mixed/neutral/no change according to the following:

• Positive change: More likely to run, more interested in/comfortable with running;• Negative change: Less likely to run, less interested in/comfortable with running;• Mixed/neutral/no change: Reports no change in interest, does not indicate feelings

either way or expresses an equal number of positive and negative sentiments.

Notes

1. We say “at minimum” as many of these woman-versus-woman elections involve a male candidate either at the primary or general election stage.

2. The Barbara Lee Foundation is a Boston-area-based organization that is dedicated to advancing women’s equality and representation in both politics and the arts.

3. Due to inevitable variation in course formats and logistics, the exercises and reflections were not administered identically across classes. Where differences are significant, we discuss them in the article. Students in women and politics classes at Brandeis University, Florida Atlantic University, and Pitzer College participated in the activities, with class enrollment rang-ing from 7 to 62 students per class.

4. For the seminar classes, students read Lawless and Fox (2005). For the lecture course, the professor assigned a shorter assignment Fox and Lawless (2010).

5. While this is not a true experiment, we borrow the language of experimental design to discuss our design and results.

6. There are no differences between students in the large lecture class that sought a wom-en’s studies minor and those who did not.

References

Atkeson, Lonna Rae. 2003. “Not All Cues Are Created Equal: The Conditional Impact of Female Candidates on Political Engagement.” Journal of Politics 65(4): 1040–1061.

Beaman, Lori, Raghabendra Chattopadhyay, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande, and Petia Topalova. 2009. “Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce Bias?” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(4): 1497–1540.

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.

Campbell, David E. and Christina Wolbrecht. 2006. “See Jane Run: Women Politicians as Role Models for Adolescents.” The Journal of Politics 68(2): 233–247.

Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). 2012a. “Current Numbers of Women Officeholders.” <http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/levels_of_office/Current_Numbers.php> (August 9, 2012).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014

Making it Personal 61

Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). 2012b. “Women Candidates 2012.” <http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/elections/documents/CanSum12.pdf> (August 9, 2012).

Costantini, Edmond. 1990. “Political Women and Political Ambition: Closing the Gender Gap.” American Journal of Political Science 34(3): 741–770.

Doherty, Leanne. 2011. “Filling the Female Political Pipeline: Assessing a Mentor-Based Internship Program.” Journal of Political Science Education 7(1): 34–47.

Fox, Richard and Jennifer Lawless. 2005. “To Run or not to Run for Office: Explaining Nascent Political Ambition.” American Journal of Political Science 49(3): 642–659.

Fox, Richard and Jennifer Lawless. 2010. “If Only They’d Ask: Gender, Recruitment, and Political Ambition.” The Journal of Politics 72(2): 310–326.

Fulton, Sarah A., Cherie D. Maestas, L. Sandy Maisel, and Walter J. Stone. 2006. “The Sense of a Woman: Gender, Ambition, and the Decision to Run for Congress.” Political Research Quarterly 59(2): 235–248.

Hansen, Susan. 1997. “Talking About Politics: Gender and Contextual Effects on Political Proselytizing.” The Journal of Politics 59(2): 73–103.

Keeter, Scott, Cliff Zukin, Molly Andolina, and Krista Jenkins. 2002. The Civic and Political Health of the Nation: A Generational Portrait (Report to The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, Tufts University).

Lawless, Jennifer, and Richard Fox. 2005. It Takes a Candidate. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lawless, Jennifer and Richard Fox. 2010. It Still Takes a Candidate. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rahn, Wendy M. 1995. A Cohort Analysis of the GSS Interpersonal Trust Item. Data presented at the Roundtable on Civic Culture and Social Capital, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Rahn, Wendy M. and John E. Transue. 1998. “Social Trust and Value Change: The Decline of Social Capital in American Youth, 1976–1995.” Political Psychology 19(3): 545–565.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Atla

ntic

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

5:54

22

Janu

ary

2014