The Private Roots of Public Action

by Burns, Nancy, Ph.D.; Schlozman, Kay Lehman; Verba, Sidney

• ISBN13: 9780674006010
• ISBN10: 0674006011
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-09-30
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

Why, after several generations of suffrage and a revival of the women's movement in the late 1960s, do women continue to be less politically active than men? Why are they less likely to seek public office or join political organizations? The Private Roots of Public Action is the most comprehensive study of this puzzle of unequal participation. The authors develop new methods to trace gender differences in political activity to the nonpolitical institutions of everyday life--the family, school, workplace, nonpolitical voluntary association, and church. Different experiences with these institutions produce differences in the resources, skills, and political orientations that facilitate participation--with a cumulative advantage for men. In addition, part of the solution to the puzzle of unequal participation lies in politics itself: where women hold visible public office, women citizens are more politically interested and active. The model that explains gender differences in participation is sufficiently general to apply to participatory disparities among other groups--among the young, the middle-aged, and the elderly or among Latinos, African-Americans and Anglo-Whites.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction: Citizenship and Unequal Participation	1	(38)
Studying Gender and Participation: A Brief Discourse on Method	39	(22)
Civic Activity: Political and Non-Political	61	(38)
The Political Worlds of Men and Women	99	(38)
The Legacy of Home and School	137	(15)
Domestic Transquility: The Beliefs of Wives and Husbands	152	(22)
Domestic Hierarchy: The Household as a Social System	174	(24)
The Workplace Roots of Political Activity	198	(21)
The Realm of Voluntarism: Non-Political Associations and Religious Institutions	219	(27)
Gender, Institutions, and Political Participation	246	(28)
Gender, Race or Ethnicity, and Participation	274	(33)
Family Life and Political Life	307	(27)
What If Politics Weren't a Man's Game?	334	(23)
Conclusion: The Private Roots of Public Action	357	(30)
Appendixes	387	(52)
A. Numbers of Cases	389	(3)
B. Ranges of Variables	392	(7)
C. Supplementary Tables	399	(36)
D. Explanation of Outcomes Analysis	435	(4)
Index	439