This symposium will review effective methods for increasing disadvantaged girl’s political self-efficacy based on the evaluation results from the EU Horizon/URKI research project on Girl’s Empowerment in Politics (G-EPIC).  

The motivation for this research is the evidence that girls’ confidence to engage in partisan politics has remained significantly lower than for boys worldwide (Hoskins and Carrasco, 2024). The gap grows between the ages of 11 and 16, and – most worryingly – classroom discussions in England have contributed to its increase (García-Albacete and Hoskins, 2024). Specifically, mixed-gender open classroom discussions have been shown to enhance boys' confidence to undertake party politics typically and, if anything, reduce girls' confidence (García-Albacete and Hoskins, 2024).  

The G-EPIC research was developed to identify how to create changes in the classroom and increase less advantaged girls' confidence to engage in party politics. 

From the initial G-EPIC research in this project, we established the different aspects of girls’ confidence in partisan politics that would become our learning outcomes and the elements that we would measure. These were:  

• Improving self-confidence in knowledge and understanding of politics.  

• Broadening the understanding of politics and reducing resistance to using and engaging with the word ‘politics’.  

• Improving self-confidence in political activities in school.  

• Improving self-confidence in political activities outside of school and participating in political activities in the future.  

• Challenging preconceptions and stereotypes of social roles in politics.  

We co-constructed a five-class pilot intervention between researchers, teachers, students, policymakers and civil society organisations in the UK, Belgium and Czechia. We achieved this through a series of co-construction workshops, which began with teachers in the UK. In autumn 2023, 15 teachers, around 100 students and 40 civil society organisation representatives, policymakers and experts participated in this process across the three countries. The co-construction process ensured that the final intervention is helpful (fulfils the country’s curriculum and the student’s needs, as understood by teachers and schools), applicable (teacher and student-friendly), culturally sensitive (contextualised to a diverse range of countries), realistic (does not require expensive equipment or additional training to implement or cause major disruption to the normal school day) and, in particular, able to be implemented with challenging school environments, which can be the reality of schools that have a high intake of disadvantaged students. 

The inclusive teaching methods that were used in the intervention were small-group work/collaborative learning, counter-narratives in the form of a case study (e.g. in UK the Gina Martin’s story, who managed to get the law changed), role models (three-minute videos of female and minority MPs explaining why they got into politics and why it is crucial to represent all social groups in Parliament); and participatory and alternative forms of assessment. The intervention through the co-construction process was adapted to each country’s context. 

Sixteen teachers delivered the pilot for 430 students in 13 schools across these countries in the summer term 2024. We upscaled the intervention and delivered it between January and April 2025 in 5 countries: UK 14 schools with approximately 1100 students receiving the intervention and 447 in control groups; Belgium with around 350 students in the intervention group, and 85 in control, Germany with 125 students in the intervention and 45 in control groups, Denmark with 125 in the intervention and 45 in control one, and Czech Republic with 350 students in intervention and 85 in control. These numbers can vary, given that the intervention occurs during the coming months.  

This symposium will present the intervention, the contextual differences between countries in the intervention and the results regarding the level of effectiveness of the intervention in four of the five countries.

Hoskins, B., & Carrasco, D. (2024). Understanding Gender Inequality in Political Self-Efficacy in Early Adolescents: Different Measures, Different Gender Gaps. POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299241264970 Hoskins, B., & Janmaat, J. G. (2024). Intergenerational transmission and the reinforcement of the political engagement gap: Identifying how university educated parents enable their children to become more politically interested during early adolescence. BRITISH EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL. https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/berj.4002 García-Albacete, G., & Hoskins, B. (2024). The gender gap in political efficacy: the accelerating effect of classroom discussions. Social Forces. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soae100