Pol Partie

Political participation of women: the case of Morocco
An explorative study at the influence of gender roles, religious beliefs,

meta-stereotype and internal political efficacy
University of Groningen
Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences
Department of Psychology
Master thesis, February 2009
Student
Sanne Schoonbeek
Student number
1562029
Supervisor
Prof. Dr. Sabine Otten

NDI Morocco, the Peoples Mirror

An explorative study at the influence of gender roles, religious beliefs,
meta-stereotype and internal political efficacy
Acknowledgements
We are living in a world which is changing rapidly. The globalization process has its influence all over
the world: people from various cultures are in contact with each other by communication technology,
migration, tourism and international trade. Therefore, I believe it is very important to learn about other
cultures by remaining in a culture which differs from your native culture. For this reason I wanted to
do the research in the light of the master program in social psychology at the University of Groningen,
in Morocco. In order to fruitfully fulfill this research I did an internship at the National Democratic
Institute (NDI) at the Peoples Mirror department, the research center of the NDI. NDI is an
international non-governmental organization which aims to promote democracy worldwide.
Of course I could not do this without the help and guidance of many people. First, I would like
to thank my supervisor prof. dr. Sabine Otten for her time and critical remarks. She guided me through
the whole research process and I feel I have learned many things from her. Additionally, I would like
to thank Paolo de Mas, the director of the Dutch Institute Morocco in Rabat. He got in contact with the
NDI and recommended them to hire me as an intern. Due to his effort, I was able to arrange an
internship at the NDI-Peoples Mirror and conduct a research for my master-thesis in Morocco.
Finally, I would like to thank Imad El Atrassi, Sarah Ibrahimi, Mona El Hamdani, Driss Choukry,
Yasmina Sarhrouny and Adil Fala from NDI Morocco for sharing their knowledge and skills with me.
I can truly say they gave me a fruitful and enjoyable stay at the NDI as well as in Morocco.
Table of contents
1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Method
11
4. Results
16
5. Discussion
23
6. References
29
7. Enclosures
34
1. Abstract
The present study examines psychosocial, cultural and religious factors that may influence the political
participation of women in Morocco, namely: gender roles, religious beliefs, meta-stereotype and internal
political efficacy. By means of a questionnaire study under 73 Moroccan women from different social
classes, age and levels of education, I tested several hypotheses regarding these factors. It appeared that
gender roles and religious beliefs had no significant influence on political participation. Meta-stereotyping,
however, did have a significant influence on political participation. The more negative meta-stereotype
Moroccan women have, the less they participate in politics. Other than expected, this effect was not
moderated by internal political efficacy. In the final section I will interpret these and some other interesting
results of this study. Moreover, I will discuss some practical implications, as well as suggestions for further
research.
2. Introduction

An explorative study at the influence of gender roles, religious beliefs, meta-stereotype and
internal political efficacy
Moroccos changes to the status of women are unique in the Arab world. In 2006, 50 women were licensed
as religious preachers (2006). Moreover, in 2004 Morocco installed a new family code. This family code
gives women in Morocco the right to divorce their husband and the right to marry whomever they wish for,
without the need of approval from their fathers. Moreover, the legal age to get married for women was
raised from 15 to 18 years, and polygamy has become practically almost impossible. These measures mean
an enormous step for the rights of women in Morocco (Haimoud, 2004). Morocco is the second Arab
country who installed a new family code (after Tunisia) and this appoints to the modern and progressive
changes in Morocco in the area of women rights.
Moroccos changes in the area of womens rights do not stop there but continue to develop. At
present, there is a huge discussion in Morocco about how to involve women more in politics. The
representation of women in politics, mainly within local communes, is described as unfair, because no more
than 0.58% of local elected Moroccans are women (Rmiche, 2008). Especially with the local elections
coming up in June of this year, the Moroccan government as well as womens movements are trying to find
a solution. In 2003, the government already took measures to give women more influence in politics. During
the parliamentary elections of that year, political parties agreed to set aside 10 percent of the seats for
women. As a result, 35 women were elected in the parliament that year (Tahri, 2003). However, it is
regretted that the 35 women who reached the parliament, were merely elected thanks to the 10 percent quota
(Storm, 2008). Moreover, during the legislative elections of 2007 only 34 women were elected, which
caused again a huge discussion about how to involve Moroccan women more in politics. Currently, political
parties are discussing whether there should be a quota for the local elections as well. Womens movements
truly support this way to get women to have more influence in politics, but does this system really works or
are there some other factors which stand in the way as well?
Not only in Morocco, but also in most other countries in the world, political participation of women
differs from that of men. Verba, Schlozman and Brady (1995) have defined political participation as any
activity that has the intent or effect of influencing governmental action, either directly by affecting the
making or implementation of public policy or indirectly by influencing the selection of people who make
those policies (p. 38). With using this definition of political participation, participating in politics can mean
a variety of activities, such as voting, attending a demonstration, signing a petition, being a candidate in
elections, discussing politics, being a member of a political party, etcetera. Research suggests that women
on some points participate less in politics than men do. Miller, Wilford and Donoghue (1999) found that
women are less politically involved and more passive regarding politics than men. Men are more likely to
claim that they initiate or engage in political discussions and men are more likely to express their
disagreement if they do not agree with someone elses opinion. Another research indicated that women are
less likely to donate money to, work for and being a member of a political party (Childs, 2004). Further,
Swanee (2007) found, in a report covering 115 countries, that women enclosed only 15 percent of the
gender gap when it comes to political empowerment at the highest level, which indicates that women are
still severely underrepresented in governments worldwide. What could cause this gap between men and
women with respect to political participation?
To be able to answer this question, research in the western world has focused on many different
explanations, such as: gender stereotyping (Sczesny, Bosak, Neff, & Schyns, 2004; Swanee, 2007; Fox &
Oxley, 2008), prejudice towards female leaders (Eagly & Karau, 2002), party identification (Kaufman &
Petrocik, 1999), sexism of voters (Rosenwasser, Rogers, Fling, Silvers-Pickens, & Butemeyer, 1987),
gender gap in political knowledge (Kenski, 2006), failure to express political attitudes (Atkeson &
Rapoport, 2003), the willingness of women to participate in politics and women doubting their leadership
abilities (Swanee, 2007). However, I believe Morocco, as a non-western country, is a different case. I
assume that in Morocco there could be as well other variables involved which affect the political
participation of women (as may be as well applicable to other comparable non-western countries).
Therefore, in this master thesis I did an explorative research on the influence of additional psychosocial,
cultural and religious factors that may contribute to the set of conditions that prevent Moroccan women
from participating in politics.
The case of Morocco: Gender roles and religious attitudes
One of the reasons why I assume Morocco is a specific case with respect to the political participation of
women is the focus on traditional gender roles. Gender roles are expectations about how men and women
should behave (Johnson, Murphy, Zewdie, & Reichard, 2008). For many women in Morocco, becoming a
wife is the most important role that she and her family strive for throughout her life. Following marriage and
becoming a wife, the next role most women work towards is becoming a mother (Batnitzky, 2008). This
emphasis on the womens role as a wife and a mother exists, because it is seen as central to the spiritual
well-being of the family and the maintenance of the social order (Treacher, 2003). Moreover, patriarchal
structures in Morocco (i.e. norms, traditions) limit the self-rule women have to choose their social roles
(Batnitzky, 2008). Additionally, a national survey indicated that almost a quarter (24%) of Moroccans is
hesitant to women's access to the job market. According to the survey 77% of those who are hesitant,
consider that "women's place is in the kitchen" (Skalli, 2006). Since Eagly (1987) described gender roles as
more than beliefs about the attributes of women and men: many of these expectations are normative in the
sense that they describe qualities or behavioral tendencies believed to be desirable for each sex (p. 13), I
assume this focus on traditional gender roles can influence the political participation of women in Morocco.
More specifically, I hypothesize that Moroccan women with more traditional views of gender roles will
show less interest in participating in politics than women with less traditional views of gender roles
(hypothesis 1).
A relevant aspect that needs to be taken into account when considering gender-roles in Morocco is
religion. The view of gender roles can be influenced by religious beliefs (Jones & McNamara, 1991; Sevim,
2006). Gender inequality is present across all religions (Hopkins & Patel, 2006). People with more
conservative religious beliefs tend to have a more traditional view of gender roles (Jones & McNamara,
1991; Read, 2003). Because almost 99% of the people in Morocco define themselves as Muslims, religion
has a major impact on society and daily life. Furthermore, research has shown that highly religious Muslims
have a lower tendency for seeking equality between men and women (Kamal & Ramzi, 2007). Because of
the influence of religious beliefs on views of gender roles and because of the major impact of the Islam in
Morocco, I assume womens religious beliefs should have a direct effect on political participation in the
sense that women with stronger religious beliefs will participate less in politics (hypothesis 2a). In addition I
assume that this effect should, at least partly, be mediated by adherence to traditional gender roles
(hypothesis 2b).
Meta-stereotype and internal political efficacy

Politics is still been viewed, by both men and women, as a domain more appropriate for men. Politics has
traditionally been a man's world. A woman may be considered too soft for political leadership or
unfeminine if she runs (Swanee, 2007). More general, men are usually seen as more competent than
women in leadership roles (Sczesny, Spreeman, & Stahlberg, 2006) and men themselves view men as more
competent than women. In research by Sczesny et al. (2004) male students were less likely than female
students to describe female managers as ambitious, competent, intelligent, objective and well-informed, and
were more likely to describe female managers as easily influenced, nervous, passive, having a strong need
for social acceptance and uncertain. Moreover, evidence suggests that stereotypes concerning gender
difference are relatively constant across cultures (Matsumoto, 2008). As a consequence, these gender
stereotypes can result in a perceived incongruity between feminine and leadership roles (Eagly & Karau,
2002; Johnson et al., 2008; Sczesny et al., 2004).
Because of the focus of traditional gender roles in Morocco I consider it is reasonable that this
causes women to hold a negative meta-stereotype about how men will appreciate female participation in
politics. A meta-stereotype refers to a stereotype of the in-group (women in this example) believed to be
held by members of a relevant out-group (men in this example) (Vorauer, Main, & O'Connell, 1998). In this
case, meta- stereotype refers to the possible belief of women that men consider women less appropriate to
participate in politics than men. The focus in Morocco on the role of women as a wife and a mother makes it
especially probable that women will hold such a negative meta-stereotype. This may have serious
implications for womens interaction with men in the political domain. Research has shown that negative
meta-stereotypes have significant negative consequences for both affective and behavioral reactions to outgroup members (Vorauer, Main, & O'Connell, 1998). Substantial research indicates that if people believe
someone holds prejudices about them that are negative, their interactions with the person will be negatively
affected (Vorauer, Main, & O'Connell, 1998). Negative meta-perceptions of the in-group can cause people
to experience inter-group anxiety (Frey & Tropp, 2006; Mendez, Gomez, & Tropp, 2007), to view the outgroup more negatively (Frey & Tropp, 2006) and to have less interest in inter-group contact (Mendez et al.,
2007). As a result, women may avoid contact with men at the political domain, because they believe men
view women negatively with respect to politics. Therefore, in the present research I hypothesize that the
more negative the meta-stereotype (that women hold about how men will evaluate their political
participation) is, the less these women will express interest in political participation (hypothesis 3).
However, I assume that the strength of this relationship between a negative meta-stereotype and
political participation can be influenced by the internal political efficacy (internal PE) of women. Internal
PE represents the perception of personal skills for political participation (Yeich & Levine, 1994). Women
with high internal PE believe more strongly that they have the skills that they consider necessary for
political participation, than women with low internal PE. I believe that it is reasonable to assume that
internal PE functions as a moderator with respect to the link between a negative meta-stereotype and the
political participation of women in Morocco (hypothesis 4). More specifically, I hypothesize that a negative
meta-stereotype causes women to participate less in politics, mainly if women have low internal political
efficacy. Women with high internal PE, however, should be able to overcome the negative impact a negative
meta-stereotype has on their intention to participate in politics.
Possible other predictors of political participation

Furthermore, there are some additional concepts whose impact on womens political participation I want to
explore in the present thesis. However, in order to stay with a feasible number of hypotheses to be tested in
this research, the impact of these variables will only be investigated with respect to their correlations with
political participation.
First, I consider external political efficacy possibly relevant. External political efficacy refers to the
perceptions of responsiveness of the political system to the concerns of individuals (Yeich & Levine, 1994).
At the moment the Moroccan government is facing a trust-crisis with its citizens, which became especially
clear during the last elections (the parliamentary elections of 2007). During the last elections, the voter
turnout appeared to be as low as 37 percent (Layashi, 2007; Storm, 2008). Moreover, the actually
percentage of valid votes was even lower, because many votes were invalid or blank (on average 23 percent
of the votes) (Layashi, 2007). This distrust of Moroccans in politics influences the political participation of
Moroccans and therefore the political participation of women as well. External political efficacy is a
variable that can be used to measure the trust that Moroccan women have in their government. More
specifically it can be used to measure to what degree Moroccan women believe their government listens to
them and does something with their problems. Therefore I decided to measure external political efficacy as a
variable.
Second, I want to take into account the possible effect of stereotype endorsement as a separate
variable besides meta-stereotyping: To what extent do women themselves believe that women are less
suitable to participate in politics than men? I consider this a very relevant variable, because research
(Albright, Forest, & Reiseter, 2001; Frey & Tropp, 2006; Holland et al., 1998; Mendez et al., 2007;
Vorauer, Hunter, Main, & Roy, 2000) has shown that what you think about yourself influences the way in
which you believe how others perceive you.
In addition, I will test in this study whether I can replicate the effects of age, marital status, socialeconomic class and level of education on political participation that have already been denoted in previous
research. Research (Batnitzky, 2008; Childs, 2004; Jones-Correa & Leal, 2001; Medoff, 1986; Nie,
Bingham Powel, & Prewitt, 1969) has demonstrated that marital status, age and social-economic class are
can influence the political participation of women. Moreover, I consider age as a very relevant variable to
measure, not only because of its possible influence on political participation, but also because of the recent
changes in Morocco with respect to the political participation of women. In 1993 the first woman was
elected in the parliament and before the elections of 2003 political parties agreed to set aside ten percent of
the seats in the parliament for women. Because of these recent changes it is important to collect data from
women from different ages, because younger women might have grown up in a time in which people are
more open to political participation of women in comparison to the time in which older women grew up.
This might cause older women to think differently about womens political participation than younger
women.
Furthermore, research by Medoff (1986) has shown that being married is negatively related to
political participation of women because of two reasons: (1) Women legislative candidates alter the
traditional authority role of men and (2) Women candidates pose a possible threat to the stability of marriage
since they may be more favourably inclined towards women-oriented issues or legislation that alters the
family unit and its economic security. Other research (Childs, 2004) indicated that married men are
significantly more likely to be politically active than married women.
With respect to social-economic class and level of education, differences can vary widely among
people in Morocco. Moreover, research has shown that an individual's social-economic class and education
strongly affect the likelihood of his engaging in various types of political activities (Nie et al., 1969).
Additionally, Medoff (1986) has shown that education is a good indicator of women's attitudes concerning
the women's political movement. Educated women have more liberal attitudes and are supportive of women
candidates. Childs (2004) and Jones-Correa and Leal (2001) confirm this influence of education and income
on political participation of women as well. Therefore, in light of this research I consider these variables
important to measure.
Summary of hypotheses
Summing up, the present thesis aims at identifying relevant predictors for womens political participation in
Morocco. Specifically, the following hypotheses are tested:
1. Moroccan women with more traditional views of gender roles will show less interest in participating
in politics than women with less traditional views of gender roles.
2. Womens religious beliefs should have a direct effect on political participation in the sense that
women with stronger religious attitudes will participate less in politics, which should, at least partly,
be mediated by adherence to traditional gender roles.
3. The more negative the meta-stereotype that women hold about how men will evaluate their political
participation, the less these women will express interest in political participation.
4. A negative meta-stereotype causes women to participate less in politics, mainly if women have low
internal political efficacy.
In addition to testing these hypotheses, the impact of external political efficacy, stereotype endorsement, and
of several demographic variables will be subject of correlation analyses.
10
3. Method
Measures
To test the hypotheses I presented in the introduction, I conducted a questionnaire study. The questionnaire
consisted of the items measuring the five concepts that I consider relevant in the present thesis. These
concepts are: political participation, religious beliefs, gender roles, meta-stereotype and internal political
efficacy. Furthermore, some additional concepts were measured, namely external political efficacy,
stereotype endorsement, and several demographic variables.
Political participation
Political participation was measured by 14 questions about the participants participation in different aspects
of politics (discussing political issues, attending demonstrations, voting, signing a petition, being or wanting
to be a candidate in elections, being or wanting to be a member of a political party).
Participants were asked about their past political participation and their intention to participate in
the future. Some questions could be answered by indicating yes or no, others had to be answered on a
five-point scale. The five-point scales ranged from never tot very often, or from certainly not to
certainly yes. Moreover, participants had to indicate how many times they attended a demonstration or
signed a petition if they indicated that they had done this in the past. An example question is: Do you discuss
political issues with your friends? (Never, Incidental, Regularly, Often, Very often). For the complete list of
question used to measure political participation, see enclosure 9.1.
Initially, the reliability of the scale was relatively low (alpha = 0.65, based on standardized scores).
Because of the importance of this measure in the present study I removed several items. First, I removed
items 3a and 4a (because almost all the participants answered no on items 3 and 4 and therefore could not
fill in questions 3a and 4a). Furthermore, I made a single item measuring the quantity of political activity
based on the responses on all dichotomous items (items 3, 4 and 5 till 8). Each yes response was counted as
1, each no response as 0; accordingly, the resulting scale could vary between 0 and 6). Finally, based on
reliability analyses, I excluded items 11 and 13 from the joint scale. After standardizing the remaining
variables by a z-transformation, the reliability of the total scale was 0.71 (Cronbachs Alpha).
Religious Beliefs
For measuring religious beliefs, I used an adapted version of the System of Beliefs Inventory scale by
Holland et al. (1998). I translated the scale into French, and I omitted the social support subscale, as I
considered it less relevant in the context of the present research. As a result, I only used the subscale beliefs
and practices. This scale consists of ten statements, and participants had to indicate on a 5-point scale how
strongly they agreed with them (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree). An example statement is: Ones
11
life and death follows a plan from God. For the complete list of question used to measure religious beliefs,
see enclosure 9.2.
Concerning reliability measures, initially the Cronbachs Alpha of the subscale beliefs and
practices was unacceptably low (0.55 Cronbachs Alpha). Therefore I decided to remove items that
included the word meditation (items 6 and 10). However, Cronbachs Alpha remained relatively low
(0.67). Because of the importance of this scale for the present research, I decided to use the scale in spite of
the low Cronbachs Alpha.
Gender roles
In order to measure views of gender roles, I used some items that specifically dealt with a link between
religion and gender roles. For this scale participant had to indicate how strongly they agreed with five
statements being presented. Answers were given on a five-point scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly
agree). An example question is: I believe God perceives men and women equally. For the complete list of
questions used, see enclosure 9.3.
Due to reliability analyses I omitted the second question of this scale (I believe God given men and
women different purposes in their lives.). However, after removing the second item, the reliability of the
subscale gender roles was still relatively low (0.65 Cronbachs Alpha). Because of the importance of this
scale for the present research, I decided to use the scale in spite of the low Cronbachs Alpha.
Meta-stereotype
Whether women held a meta-stereotype was measured by five statements about what the participants
believed most Moroccan men think of women and political participation. The reliability of the scale was
excellent with a Cronbachs Alpha of 0.98. The participants had to indicate how strongly they agreed with
the statements. The answers were given on a five-point scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree).
Example questions are: I believe most Moroccan men find women not appropriate to attend a protest
meeting; I believe most Moroccan men find women appropriate to be a candidate in election. For the
complete list of question used to measure the meta-stereotype, see enclosure 9.4.
Internal political efficacy

For measuring Internal political efficacy, I translated the subscale for internal political efficacy of the Craig
and Maggiottos political efficacy Measure (Craig & Maggiotto, 1982) in French. The reliability and
validity of the PE scales (internal PE and external PE) developed by Craig and Maggiotto was sustained
(Zimmerman, 1989), as also appeared in the current research with Cronbachs Alpha of 0.78.
The subscale of internal political efficacy contained of five statements and participants had to
indicate how strongly they agreed with them. The answers were given on a five-point scale (1 = Strongly
12
disagree, 5 = Strongly agree). Example questions are: Sometimes politics and government seem so
complicated that a person like me cant really understand whats going on; People like me are generally
well qualified to participate in the political activity and decision making of our country. For the complete
list of questions used to measure internal political efficacy, see enclosure 9.5.
Additional measures
External political efficacy

For measuring external political efficacy, I used the subscale of external political efficacy from the same
measure I used to measure Internal Political Efficacy, namely Craig and Maggiottos political efficacy
Measure (Craig & Maggiotto, 1982). The subscale for external political efficacy contains 9 questions which
I translated into French. Participants had to give their answers on a five-point scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 5
= Strongly agree). An example question is: I dont think public officials care much what people like me
think. For the complete list of question used to measure external political efficacy, see enclosure 9.6. As
mentioned in the section of internal political efficacy, the reliability and validity of the PE scales developed
by Craig and Maggiotto was sustained (Zimmerman, 1989), as well as in the current research with a
Cronbachs Alpha of 0.78.
Stereotype endorsement
Stereotype endorsement was measured by three statements of which the participants had to indicate how
strongly they agreed with them. The reliability of this scale was excellent, with a Cronbachs Alpha of 0.96.
The answers were given on a five-point scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree). An example
questions is: I believe that it is inappropriate for women to participate in politics. For the complete list of
question used to measure stereotype endorsement, see enclosure 9.7.
Age, Marital status, Social-economic class and Level of Education

Two items in the questionnaire dealt with the age and marital status of the participants. Further, socialeconomic class is measured by asking the income of the family of the women, because previous experiences
of the Peoples Mirror research centre in Morocco learned that women may experience difficulty giving the
exact amount of money they themselves earn each month. Subsequently, this family income is being divided
by the number of people in their household.
Level of education was measured according to the Moroccan school system and based on previous
research conducted in Morocco by the Peoples Mirror. The participants had to indicate their highest level of
education; I distinguished between Primaire (Primary school); Secondaire, collge (first 4 years after
primary school); Niveau Bac, lyce (first four years after collge, the completion of secondary studies); Bac
13
et plus (completion of secondary studies and some extra education or training) and Universitaire
(University). See enclosure 9.8.
Participants
The participants were 80 Moroccan women of different ages (ranging from 18 till 54 years) and levels of
education (Primaire, 5.5%; Secondaire, 23.3%; Niveau Bac, 27.4%; Bac et plus, 21.9% and Universitaire,
21.9%.). 47.9% of the women were married. From the initially 80 participants I had to remove 7 from
analysis, because they did not fill in all the research questions. Therefore, a total of 73 participants remained
in the further analysis.
Procedure
The participants were randomly contacted in public places in Rabat (the capital of Morocco) by a female
Moroccan trained questioner from the Peoples Mirror research centre. Because of my obvious appearance
as a non-Moroccan, it was very likely that when I myself would have approached Moroccan women on the
street and would have asked them if they were willing to fill in a questionnaire, they would have thought
more strongly about the questions and might even have been wondering why a western person wanted to
know this information about them. They could have asked themselves how the western world would view
Morocco and they could have speculated what I would expect them to answer. These thoughts could have
influenced the way Moroccan women answer the research questions, therefore I decided to hire a trained
female Moroccan questioner to approach the women.
Participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire containing the items explained above. They were
all approached by the questioner with the same question: Please, can I have a couple of minutes of your
time? Would you like to give your opinion on different current subjects, through a questionnaire? We tried
not to state explicitly that the research was about political participation of women.
Instructions to the questioner

Before the actual recruitment, the questioner was asked to read the whole questionnaire, so she knows what
the participants would have to fill in. In addition she was given several instructions. She was asked to
randomly recruit participants in different quarters of Rabat in order to recruit women from different social
classes. Also she was instructed to approach approximately 20 women aged between 18 and 25 years, 20
women in the age range of 25-35 years, 20 women aged between 35 and 45 years, as well as 20 women
between the age of 45-55 years, in order not to have only women from a small range of ages. Moreover, the
questioner was asked not to discuss the questions with the participants, but to give only explanations about
questions when participants asked her to, and to check whether the participants had filled in all the
14
questions. The instructions were also given to her on a piece of paper which she was requested to bring
during the recruitment.
Questionnaired
At the first page of the questionnaire, the participants read an instruction about the questions they had to fill
in. This instruction dealt with the following information: make sure you fill in every question; do not discuss
your answers with others while filling in the questionnaire; the answers you give will be completely
anonymous. Furthermore, the questions in the questionnaire were divided in four categories (I till IV).
Respectively, the subjects of these four categories represented: the participants relation with politics; the
participants beliefs about men, women and politics; the participants religious beliefs; general information
about the participant. Before each category of questions there was a small instruction about how to fill in the
answers they wanted to give. Moreover, participants were asked to give the answer which first crossed their
minds as well as they were reminded at the fact that they couldnt give right or wrong answers. At the end of
the questionnaire, participants were asked if they wanted to be informed about the results of the research. If
so, they could leave their name and e-mail address on a list which the questioner brought with her. It
appeared that almost all the participants were willing to give their e-mail address to the questioner. This was
either their own e-mail or (if they did not have an e-mail address of their own) the e-mail address of a
relative. For the whole questionnaire (in French), see enclosure 9.9.
15
4. Results
In the following, I will first focus on the general distribution of the data (considering the outliers and mean
values for the main variables in this study) and the impact of socio-demographic variables (marital status
and level of education). Thereafter, I will report the results for the four hypotheses stated in the introduction.
Exploration
Outliers
In order to test the presented hypotheses, regression and correlation analyses are required. Because these
analyses are both sensitive to outliers, box plots have been made of each variable to see if the data contains
any (figure 1). The variables political participation, meta-stereotype, internal political efficacy and
stereotype endorsement did not contain any outliers. However, especially the variable with respect gender
roles contained many outliers, probably due to the fact that 61.6% of the participants the same score on this
variable (a score of 14 on a scale ranging from 0 - 20). The standard deviation was relatively small (SD =
2.02), which causes scores that differed more than 2 points from 14 to be outliers. Noteworthy is the fact
that the scores one participant were outliers on all the three scales that contained outliers. Therefore, I
decided to remove this participant from analysis. I did not remove other outliers, since there is no concrete
reason to do so and because the values of Cooks distance indicated that the outliers do no exhibit a large
degree of influence on the parameters when a regression analysis is made (all of the values of Cooks
Distance were much lower as 1, with the highest value being 0.14).
16
Figure 1: Box plots of political participation, religious belief, gender roles, meta-stereotype, internal political
efficacy, stereotype endorsement and external political efficacy.
Descriptive statistics
To further explore the data, I examined minimum and maximum scores of each of the variables, as well as
the median, mean and standard deviation (see table 1). With respect to political participation, the mean score
was 13.67 on a scale ranging from 0 (= no political participation) to 30 (= very high political participation).
Therefore, the political participation of the participants was neither very low, nor very high. All other scales
varied on 5-point scales ranging from 0 to 4 (for the specific scoring of the respective scales, see the
enclosures"). Considering gender roles, the mean value was 3.23 (min. = 1.0, max. = 3.75) . Therefore,
participants a relatively high score on the scale considering gender roles; in general, they believe men and
women are relatively equal and have the same purposes in life. With respect to religious beliefs, participants
scored on a mean value of 0.21 (min. = 0, max. = 0.88). This score implies that participants in general show
strong religious beliefs. Further, the average score on meta-stereotype was 0.89 (min. = 0, max. = 3.2).
However, the standard deviation of the scale was high (SD = 6.16) and 61.1% of the participants scored 0 on
the scale. Hence, the majority of the participants gave the most negative rating for the assumed attitude of
men towards womens political participation. This implicates that participants in general strongly feel that
men consider women as inappropriate to participate in politics. The mean of internal political efficacy was
2.34 (min. = 1.6, max. = 3.4). This score can be considered neither very low, nor very high. Participants
17
seem to be not very confident, but also not very insecure about their political skills. The mean of stereotype
endorsement was 1.97 (min. = 1, max. = 4) which is nearly exactly in the middle of the scale. This
implicates that participants in general are uncertain about whether they believe women are suitable to
participate in politics or not. Finally, the mean of external political efficacy was 1.12 (min. = 0.67, max. =
2.1). The average score of the participants is rather low. This indicates that participants have little trust in
the responsiveness of the government to the concerns of their citizens.
Table 1: descriptive statistics for the main variables

Min.
Max.
Mean
Std. Deviation
26
13.67
5.63
Gender roles
1.0
3.75
3.23
0.56
Religious beliefs
0.88
0.21
0.22
Meta-stereotype
3.2
0.89
1.23
1.6
3.4
2.34
0.45
Stereotype Endorsement
1.97
0.87
0.67
2.1
1.12
1.23
Impact of socio-demographic variables

Furthermore I investigated the impact of socio-demographic variables on political participation, religious
beliefs, gender roles, meta-stereotype, internal political efficacy, stereotype endorsement and external
political efficacy. First, the socio-demographic variable social-economic class had to be excluded from the
analysis since 49.3% of the participants did not fill in the question regarding this variable. When
investigating the other socio-demographic variables, it appeared that age was significantly positive related
to political participation (r= 0.27, p< 0.05) which indicates that the older women, the more they participate
in politics. Also, age was significantly positively related to religious beliefs (r= 0.30, p< 0.01). Thus, in
general it seems that if participants are older they tend to have less strong religious beliefs. Moreover, level
of education correlated significantly positively with internal political efficacy (r= 0.26, p< 0.05), stereotype
endorsement (r= 0.29, p< 0.05) and external political efficacy (r= 0.26, p< 0.05). This implicates,
respectively, that the higher the level of education of the participants, a) the more they believe they have the
skills to participate in politics, b) the more they believe that men and women are equally qualified to
participate in politics, and c) the more trust they have in the responsiveness of the political system to the
concerns of individuals. Marital status was not related to any of the variables.
18
Further noteworthy results

When viewing the participants scores of political participation, it is remarkable that 84.9% of the
participants indicated that they voted during the parliamentary elections of 2007. This average lies far above
the national 37% voter turnout. Considering the high percentage of participants that voted during the last
elections, it is surprising that only 28.8% said they certainly would vote during the upcoming local elections
of 2009. Moreover, 28.8% of the participants have attended a demonstration in the past, and if they did so
they have done it on average 2.2 times. Additionally, 17.8% of the participants stated they have ever signed
a petition, and they indicated that on average they have done it 2.1 times.
Furthermore, it appeared that external political efficacy correlated significantly positive with
political participation (r= 0.33, p< 0.01), which means that the higher the trust of the participants in the
responsiveness of the political system, the more they show interest in political participation.
Finally, also stereotype endorsement correlated significantly positive with political participation
(r=0.34, p< 0.01). This result implies that the more positive Moroccan women think about womens
political participation, the more they participate in politics.
Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1: Moroccan women with more traditional views of gender roles will participate less in politics
than Moroccan women with less traditional views of gender roles
The first hypothesis I examined was if Moroccan women with more traditional views of gender roles will
participate less in politics than Moroccan women with less traditional views of gender roles. In order to see
how participants' responses on the political participation measures were affected by their views on gender
roles, a linear regression analysis with dependent variable political participation and independent variable
gender roles is needed. However, the data contained severe violations of the assumptions required in order
to do regression analysis. As can be viewed in figure 2, there is no linear relation and the assumption of
homoscedasticity, or equal variances, is violated. Moreover, the Levene Statistic for equal variances
indicated that the assumption for equal variances is not sufficient (Leven Statistic(7, 63)= 1.68, p= 0.13). In
addition, transformation of the variable gender roles could not succeed. Therefore, I used a non-parametric
test, namely the Kruskal-Wallis Test, to test the hypothesis. It appeared, as could be expected on the basis of
the skewed distribution of the data, that there was no differences between scores on the gender roles scale in
political participation ( 2= 7.29, p= 0.51).
19
Figure 2: Residual Plot of the variable gender roles
Hypothesis 2: Womens religious beliefs have a direct effect on political participation in the sense that
women with stronger religious attitudes will participate less in politics (2a), which should (at least partly)
be mediated by adherence to traditional gender roles (2b)
The second examined hypothesis dealt with the influence of religious beliefs on the political participation of
women and the mediating role of traditional gender roles in this relationship. To test this idea, I first
examined the relationship between political participation and religious beliefs. It appeared that there was no
correlation between the variables (r= 0.09, p= 0.43), therefore, hypothesis 2a could not be confirmed . Given
this lack of correlation, I did not further test the mediating impact of gender roles which was assumed in
hypothesis 2b.
Hypothesis 3: Moroccan women with a more negative meta-stereotype will participate less in politics than
women with a less negative meta-stereotype
The third hypothesis claims that women with a more negative meta-stereotype will show less interest in
participating in politics than women with a less negative meta-stereotype. In order to test this hypothesis, I
20
examined the correlation between meta-stereotype and political participation. In fact, the correlation was
positive and significant (r= 0.24, p< 0.05), suggesting that hypothesis 3 could be confirmed.
However, when viewing the intercorrelation between meta-stereotype, internal political efficacy,
external political efficacy and stereotype endorsement, it appeared that these variables correlate strongly. As
can be viewed in table 2, all intercorrelations are highly significant; this implies that there is a problem with
multicollinearity. Therefore, further examination of the role of internal PE, external PE and stereotype
endorsement is needed.
Table 2: Intercorrelations between political participation, meta-stereotype, internal political efficacy, external
political efficacy and stereotype endorsement
Meta-stereotype
Political
Meta-
Internal political
External political
Stereotype
participation
stereotype
efficacy
efficacy
endorsement
1.00
0.24*
0.43**
0.33**
0.34**
1.00
0.77**
0.62**
0.88**
1.00
0.62**
0.74**
1.00
0.54**

Stereotype endorsement
1.00
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
To further explore the relationship between meta-stereotype, internal political efficacy, external political
efficacy, stereotype endorsement and political participation, I conducted a regression analyses where metastereotype was added last in the regression analysis (after internal PE, external PE and stereotype
endorsement). It appears that meta-stereotype does still explain a significant extra proportion of variance in
political participation if internal PE and stereotype endorsement are first added in the regression analysis (F
change(1,67)= 6.46, p= 0.01). Therefore, the hypothesis that women with a more negative meta-stereotype
will participate less in politics than women with a less negative meta-stereotype, can be confirmed.
Hypothesis 4: A negative meta-stereotype causes Moroccan women to participate less in politics mainly if
these women have low internal political efficacy
The last hypothesis dealt with the moderating influence of internal PE in the relationship between a negative
meta-stereotype and the political participation of women. In order to see if there is a moderating influence of
internal PE, several steps need to be taken. First, I computed standardized values of internal political
21
efficacy. Second, I repeated the same procedure for the variable meta-stereotype. Subsequently, I
constructed a new variable by making a product variable of the standardized internal PE variable and the
standardized variable of meta-stereotype. Thereafter, I did a regression analyses by first adding the
standardized variables of internal PE and meta-stereotype and in the second step adding the product
variable. This analysis revealed that the interaction term had no significant effect on top of the main effect
of internal political efficacy (t= -0.16, p= 0.87). Therefore, this hypothesis could not be confirmed (see table
3).
Table 3: Betas and p-values for the two main effects and the interaction effect
Beta
t-statistic
p-value
Main effect Internal political efficacy
0.24
2.10
0.04
Main effect Meta-stereotype
0.43
3.98
<0.01
Interaction effect
-0.15
-0.98
0.33
22
5. Discussion
Interpretation of research results

The present explorative study revealed several interesting results, such as an effect of meta-stereotype on
political participation; an effect of stereotype endorsement on political participation; and the fact that
religious attitudes do not have any influence on political participation. However, before discussing the
results in more detail, I would like to mention a few caveats with respect to the present data.
First, participants were quite suspicious when they read the questions presented to them. During the
time that participants filled in the questionnaires, the hired questioner had to answer many times questions
from the participants regarding the objective of the research. Also participants wanted to know whether she
had political interests herself. I believe this truly reflects the distrust Moroccan women have regarding
politics, especially when viewing the results of the external political efficacy measure, which was very low.
It appears that Moroccan women have little trust in the Moroccan government in that they perceive that the
government does not (sufficiently) respond to the concerns of their citizens.
Second, the used research method (by means of questionnaires) has certain advantages (such as a
smaller chance at social desirable answers), but this method also has unfavorable consequences. In order to
participate in a questionnaire survey, participants have to be literate. However, in Morocco illiteracy is still a
big problem. According to an estimation of UNESCO in 2006, 58.8 % of the women in Morocco are
illiterate1. This means that more than half of the women in Morocco can not read or write and therefore this
group could not participate in this research. Research has shown that if women are more educated they
participate more in politics (Childs, 2004; Jones-Correa & Leal, 2001). As a result, this research might be
biased by not taking into account illiterate Moroccan women. This might explain why the percentage of
participants who voted in the elections of 2007 was much higher (84.9%) than the national voter turnout
(37%), because based on the research of Jones-Correa and Leal (2001) and Childs (2004) it is expected that
illiterate women would show less interest in voting. Therefore I suggest that future research at the political
participation of Moroccan women would use other methods, such as qualitative methods like interviewing,
to make sure that illiterate women can participate.
Finally, I would like to make a comment concerning the reliability of the scales. However some
scales had an excellent reliability (such as meta-stereotype and stereotype endorsement, respectively 0.98
and 0.96 Cronbachs Alpha), other scales showed low reliability. Especially the reliability of the scale with
respect to gender roles was low (0.65 Cronbachs Alpha), but also the scale for religious beliefs (0.67
Cronbachs Alpha) was relatively low in reliability. Therefore, these results should be interpreted with
caution. I suspect that the reliability of the scales was low, because these concept are somewhat different
1
A report with the UNESCO estimates can be found on http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer
23
for women in Morocco than for women in the western world. To me, this truly reflects the idea that western
concepts can not be applied without any problems to non-western people. I will further illustrate this issue
below.
Having discussed some caveats of the present research I want to discuss the research results in more
detail. First, it could not be proven that if women have a more traditional view of how roles should be
divided between men and women, they tend to show less interest in political participation (hypothesis 1).
There were no differences between women with traditional views of gender roles and women with less
traditional views of gender roles in political participation. The reason why this outcome is difficult to
interpret is the reliability of the used scale considering views of gender roles. The reliability was low (0.65
Cronbachs Alpha) and as a consequence, this implies that the used scale does not measure the view of
Moroccan women on gender roles sufficiently, or it may measure another concept. Therefore, it is difficult
to draw clear cut conclusions with respect to the views Moroccan women have on gender roles and its
relation to political participation of these women.
In addition, it could not be demonstrated that religious beliefs influences political participation
(hypothesis 2a). As a consequence, the moderating role of the gender roles in the relationship between
religious beliefs and political participation (hypothesis 2b) could not be tested. It appeared that if women
have stronger religious beliefs this does not imply that they show less interest in participating in politics.
The correlation between religious beliefs and politic participation was zero. This may be found so because
the participants in general showed strong religious beliefs. In other words, the variation between the
participants in their religious beliefs could have been not extensive enough in order to distinguish between
weaker and stronger religious beliefs in relation with political participation.
Furthermore, hypothesis 3 could be confirmed. Meta-stereotype has a direct effect on political
participation, even when the variables stereotype endorsement, internal political efficacy and external
political efficacy (which had high correlations with meta-stereotype and with each other) were added in the
regression analysis first. In general Moroccan women tend to have a very negative view on how they think
men perceive women with respect to political participation and it appeared that the more Moroccan women
think that men perceive women as inappropriate to participate in politics, the less interest in political
participation they show.
Additionally, concerning hypothesis 4, there was no moderating influence of internal political
efficacy on the relationship between meta-stereotype and political participation. It appears that if women
belief they have the skills to participate in politics, they can not overcome the impact of a negative metastereotype on their political participation.
Beyond of the results concerning the hypotheses, some also interesting results have been found. It
appeared that stereotype endorsement, just like meta-stereotype, explains a unique proportion of variance in
political participation above the variation explained by meta-stereotype, internal and external political
24
efficacy. In general, the participants were uncertain whether they believe women are appropriate to
participate in politics or not. However, the more they believe that women are not suitable to participate in
politics, the less they themselves participate.
In addition, the very high correlation between meta-stereotype and stereotype endorsement
implicates that Moroccan women fully adopt what they believe about mens view regarding the political
participation of women. Moreover, research has already shown that what you think about yourself has a
great influence on what you believe how others perceive you (Albright, Forest, & Reiseter, 2001; Frey &
Tropp, 2006; Holland et al., 1998; Mendez et al., 2007; Vorauer, Hunter, Main, & Roy, 2000). This
implicates that the way in which Moroccan women perceive women as appropriate to participate in politics
is dismissive determinant for their political participation.
Taken together, this research indicates that there are at least two important factors that influence the
political participation of Moroccan women: the extend to which women believe men consider women as
appropriate to participate in politics (meta-stereotype) and the extend to which Moroccan women believe
women in general are appropriate to participate in politics (stereotype endorsement). Moreover, also internal
and external political efficacy correlated highly with political participation. However, they did not explain a
significant proportion of unique variance in political participation. Therefore, I assume that of the concepts
measured, meta-stereotype and stereotype endorsement are the two most important factors in the political
participation of Moroccan women.
Practical implications
The Moroccan government currently is deciding about a quota-system for women for the local elections of
2009. Although they did not set a percentage yet about how many local seats will be reserved for women,
they believe a quota-system will encourage the political participation of women. Based on the present
research, I believe this will not be the case. Although a quota system will give some women more influence
in politics, I believe that other things must change in order to get women more involved. Primarily, the
negative idea Moroccan women have about how men view women with respect to political participation (the
negative meta-stereotype) should change. Because the way you perceive yourself has a great impact in the
way you believe how others perceive you (Albright, Forest, & Reiseter, 2001; Frey & Tropp, 2006; Holland
et al., 1998; Mendez et al., 2007; Vorauer, Hunter, Main, & Roy, 2000), the way in which Moroccan women
view the political participation of women in general should change in order to reduce the effect of a negative
meta-stereotype on political participation. Although research has shown that self-regulation processes can
suppress stereotypical thoughts effectively, the capacity of people to suppress these thought depends on
limited resources and becomes depleted when it is used (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). However, it could
be that promoting education of women can cause women to believe that women in general are suitable to
participate in politics, since level of education was significantly positive correlated to stereotype
25
endorsement. If Moroccan women can gain a more positive image of womens political participation
through education, women will have a more positive image about how men view women with respect to
political participation. Therefore, they will participate more in politics.
Moreover, because internal political efficacy correlated highly with both meta-stereotype and
stereotype endorsement, I assume that it is of great importance that Moroccan women gain confidence in
their political skills. It has been suggested (Semetko & Valkenburg, 1998) that political efficacy could be
improved by information acquisition, for example by attentiveness to political news on television.
Moreover, in this present study, level of education correlated with internal political efficacy; therefore if the
government would stimulate political information acquisition and would take steps in order to stimulate
education of women (especially considering the high rate of illiteracy under Moroccan women), I believe
the political participation of Moroccan women could improve considerably.
Furthermore, as a consequence of the significant positive correlation of external political efficacy
with political participation, I assume that this factor also can play a role in the promotion of political
participation of Moroccan women. The Moroccan government should restore the trust of women in the
responsiveness of the Moroccan government towards its citizens, since the external political efficacy of
women was low. If women do not perceive that the government will listen to them and does something
about the problems they experience, women have less the intention to participate in politics.
Taken together, I assume on the basis of the results of this present research that stimulating
education of Moroccan women, changing Moroccan womens beliefs about female political participation,
raising their trust in the political system and political information acquisition could improve the political
participation of Moroccan women more than a quota system, which only allows certain well educated
women to have some more influence in politics. The average Moroccan woman, especially considering the
high proportion of Moroccan women that is illiterate or has little education, is more benefitted from such
interventions than of a quota system. Moreover, these implications might also apply to similar other nonwestern countries.
Suggestions for further research

I assume that the present explorative research can serve as a basis for further research through which future
researchers can create a deeper understanding of the political participation of women in Morocco, as well as
women in other comparable non-western countries. On the basis of the present research I want to offer
several suggestions. I believe the present research truly demonstrates that western concepts can not be
applied to non-western people without any problems. This present research showed some difficulties with
the interpretation of the results, because of low reliability of the scales for political participation, gender
roles and religious beliefs. This problem may be caused be the fact that there is little cross-cultural research
considering perceptions of non western women (or non western people in general). This became especially
26
obvious with respect to the scale of gender roles and religious beliefs. What does it mean for Moroccan
women to be equal to men? In the western world, we assume that equality of men and women does not
mean that women are supposed to be the only ones responsible for the household. However, when looking at
the answers of the participants at the questions regarding gender roles, it suggests that Moroccan women
may have another view of what it means to be equal to men. 94.5% of the participants answered strongly
agree to the statement I believe God perceives men and women as equal. Of those participants, 88.4%
also answered strongly agree to the statement I believe God gives men and women different purposes in
their lives. This would suggest that Moroccan women believe that women have different purposes in their
lives than men, but that this doesnt mean that women are not equal to men. Future cross-cultural research
could investigate how Moroccan women view gender roles in order to develop a more reliable and valid
measure for measuring the view of gender roles of Moroccan women.
Concerning the scale of religious beliefs, the questions in which the word meditation was used
caused the scale to be very unreliable. It appears that, in contrast to western people, Moroccan women in
general do not understand what meditation is, do not practice meditation or do not see it as a part of their
religion. However, even when removing the items which included the word meditation, the reliability
remained relatively low (0.67 Cronbachs Alpha). This also is an example of the fact that western
measurements can not always be applied without problems to non-western people.
Furthermore, I believe qualitative methods, such as in-depth interviews are needed, not only to be
able to include illiterate women, but also in order to investigate how the strong the relationship between
stereotype endorsement, meta-stereotype and internal political efficacy is formed in Moroccan women.
Qualitative methods could provide a deeper understanding of these concepts. Why would Moroccan women
believe they lack political skills (or not)? Why and how is it related to the extent to which Moroccan women
believe men consider them less appropriate to participate? Why is the focus of traditional gender roles
important in Morocco? How come Moroccan women are uncertain about if women are appropriate to
participate in politics? How do Moroccan women form an image of the responsiveness of the Moroccan
government? Since there is little cross-cultural research with respect to psychological concepts in Morocco,
such questions are important to be answered in order to gain a clearer image of how such concepts are
manifested in Morocco. Moreover, such questions are important in understanding why and under what
social-psychological conditions Moroccan women will participate in politics or not. Finally, such questions
are especially relevant in developing further ways in order to promote the political participation of women
in Morocco and may also help womens participation in comparable countries.
Finally, the used statistical method to test the hypotheses was mostly correlation. Because
correlation does not imply causation, further research could focus on the political participation of Moroccan
women in a cross-sectional design through which it is possible to draw causal conclusions. Future research
could further test the influence of meta-stereotype and stereotype endorsement on political participation, as
27
well as the relationship between internal and external political efficacy and political participation. Moreover,
research could focus on other causal relationship(s) between concepts measure in the present study. For
example, could the believe of Moroccan women that they lack the skills to participate in politics be a
consequence of adherence to traditional gender roles or conservative religious beliefs? The detection of
causal relations can further help to take measures in the promotion of the political participation of Moroccan
women.
28
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Sevim, S. A. (2006). Religious tendency and gender roles: predictors of the attitudes towards women's work
roles. Social Behavior and personality, 34, 77-86.
Skalli, K. (2006, September 21). La femme marocaine vue autrement. Aujourd'hui le Maroc. Retrieved
September 28, 2008, from http://www.aujourdhui.ma/actualite-details49227.html.
Storm, L. (2008). The parliamentary election in Morocco, September 2007. Electoral Studies, 27, 356-390.
Swanee, H. (2007). Let women rule. Foreign Affairs, 86, 109-118.
31
Tahri, R. (2003). "Women's Political Participation: The Case of Morocco". Association Dmocratique des
femmes du Maroc. Retrieved September 19, 2008, from http://www.quotaproject.org/CS/CS_Morocco
_tahri_ 27_7_2004.pdf.
Treacher, A. (2003). Reading the Other Women, Feminism, and Islam. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 4,
59-71.
Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American
politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vorauer, J. D., Hunter, A. J., Main, K. J., & Roy, S. A. (2000). Meta-stereotype activation: Evidence from
indirect measures for specific evaluative concerns experienced by members of dominant groups in
intergroup interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 690-707.
Vorauer, J. D., Main, K. J., & O'Connell, G. B. (1998). How do individuals expect to be viewed by
members of lower status groups? Content and implications of meta-stereotypes. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 75, 917-937.
Yeich, S., & Levine, R. (1994). Political-Efficacy: enhancing the construct and its relationship to
mobilization of people. Journal of Community Psychology, 22, 259-271.
Zimmerman, M. A. (1989). The relationship between political efficacy and citizen participation: construct
validation studies. Journal of PErsonality Assessment, 53, 554-566.
32
33
9. Enclosures
9.1 Measure of Political Participation (14 questions) with points being given to the answers
Never
Incidental
Regularly
Often
Very often
Do you discuss political issues with your friends?
Do you discuss political issues with members of your

family (husband, siblings (grand-) parents, partner)?
Yes
No
Did you ever attend a protest meeting or

demonstration?
1 time
2 times
3 times
4 times
5 times or
more
5
Yes
No
1 time
2 times
3 times
4 times
5 times or
more
5
Yes
No
3a
4a
If yes to question 3: How often did you participate?
Have you ever signed a petition?
If yes to question 4: How often did you sign a

petition?
Did you vote in the parliamentary elections of 2007?
Are you a member or have you been a member of a

political party?
Have you been or are you a candidate in
parliamentary and/or local elections?
Have you been or are you a member of an
association/NGO?
Certainly
not
0
I dont
think so
1
I dont
know
2
Maybe I
will
3
Certainly
yes
4
7
8
9
10
11
In the future, will you consider attending a protest

meeting or demonstration?
Do you have the intention to vote in the coming local
elections of 2009?
In the future, will you consider signing a petition?
34
12
13
14
In the future, will you consider being a member of a

political party?
In the future, will you consider being a member of an
association/NGO?
Do you have the ambition to be a candidate in
parliamentary and/or local elections?
Certainly
not
0
I dont
think so
1
I dont know
2
Maybe
I will
3
Certainly
yes
4
9.2 Measure of Religious Beliefs (10 questions) with points being given to the answers
I feel certain that God in some form exists.
I pray to God for help during bad times.
Ones life and death follows a plan from God.
I believe God protects me from harm.
During times of illness, my religious or spiritual beliefs

have been strengthened.
Prayer or meditation has helped me cope during times of
serious illness.
I believe God will not give me a burden I can not carry.
6
7
8
9
10
I have experienced a sense of hope as a result of my

religious or spiritual beliefs.
Religion is important in my day-to-day life.
I have experienced peace of mind through my prayers
and meditation.
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
I dont know
Agree
Strongly
agree
9.3 Measure of Gender Roles (5 questions) with points being given to the answers
I believe God perceives men and women as equal.
I believe God gives men and women different purposes

in their lives.
I believe God perceives that the role of women is to be
more at home than men.
I think God believes men and women can fulfill the
same tasks in life equally well.
I believe God perceives that the role of men is to be
more outside home than women.
3
4
5
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
I dont know
Agree
Strongly
agree
35
9.4 Measure of Meta-stereotype (5 questions) with points being given to the answers
1
2
3
4
5
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
I dont know
Agree
Strongly
agree
I believe most Moroccan men find it inappropriate if

women attend a protest meeting.
I believe most Moroccan men consider women
inappropriate candidates in political elections.
women discus political issues.
women sign petitions.
I believe most Moroccan men consider it
inappropriate if women vote during elections.
9.5 Measure of Internal political efficacy (5 questions) with points being given to the answers
3
4
Sometimes politics and government seem so

complicated that a person like me cant really
understand whats going on.
People like me are generally well qualified to
participate in the political activities and decision
making of our country.
I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the
important political issues in our society.
Todays problems are so difficult I feel I could not
know enough to come up with any ideas that might
solve them.
I feel like I could do as good a job in politics as
most of the politicians we elect.
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
I dont
know
Agree
Strongly
agree
36
9.6 Measure of External political efficacy (9 questions) with points being given to the answers
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
I dont think public officials care much about what people like
me think about politics.
Generally speaking, those we elect to public office loose touch
with the people pretty quickly.
Candidates for political positions are interested in peoples
votes, but not in their opinions.
There are plenty of ways for people like me to have a say in
what our government does.
Politicians are supposed to be servants of the people, but too
many of them try to be our masters.
It hardly makes any difference who I vote for, because whoever
gets elected does whatever he or she wants to do anyway.
In this country, a few people have all the political power and
the rest of us have nothing to say.
It doesnt matter what a person does: if the politicians want to
listen the will, and if they dont want to listen they wont.
Most public officials wont listen to me no matter what I do.
Strongly
disagree
4
Disagree
Agree
I dont
know
2
Strongly
agree
0
9.7 Measure of Stereotype endorsement (3 questions) with points being given to the answers
1
2
3
I believe that men and women are not equally

qualified to participate in politics.
I believe men are more suitable to participate in
politics than women.
I believe that it is inappropriate for women to
participate in politics.
Strongly
disagree
4
Disagree
I dont know
Agree
Strongly
agree
0
37
9.8 Questions to describe the sample (5 questions) with points being given to the answers
1. Are you married?
O Yes (0)
O No (1)
2. With how many family members do you live (excl. yourself)?
family members
3. What is your age?
years old
4. What is your level of education?
O Primaire (0)
O Secondaire (collge) (1)
O Niveau Bac (lyce) (2)
O Bac et plus (3)
O Universitaire (4)
5. Can you give an indication of the monthly income of your household?

O Less then 3500 Dhs (0)
O 3500 5000 Dhs (1)
O 5000 10000 Dhs (2)
O 10000 15000 Dhs (3)
O 15000 20000 Dhs (4)
More than 20000 Dhs (5)
38
9.9 Questionnaire in French
Questionnaire: lopinion des femmes

Introduction
Nous vous remercions de votre volont de remplir ce questionnaire sur lopinion des femmes. Le questionnaire est divis en quatre catgories de
questions (I, II, III, IV). Avant le dbut de chaque catgorie il ya une petite explication du type de questions auxquelles vous devrez rpondre. S'il vous
plat lisez toutes les instructions et toutes les questions attentivement et assurez-vous de remplir toutes les questions. S'il vous plat ne pas discuter des
questions ou vos rponses avec les autres pendant que vous remplissez le questionnaire, je suis intresss seulement par votre opinion personnelle.
Ensuite, vous tes libre de discuter le questionnaire avec qui vous le souhaitez.
Chaque rponse que vous remplissez sera totalement anonyme. Cela signifie que nous ne pouvons en aucune faon lier les rponses votre personne ni
votre personnalit. En fait, nous nous intressons des tendances qui deviennent visibles travers un large groupe de participants, et non pas dans
l'analyse des rponses dune participante.
39
Questionnaire lopinion des femmes

Partie I: Les questions suivantes sont propos de votre nature avec la politique. Suivant les questions, plusieurs options de rponses sont indiques. S'il vous
plat rpondez aux questions en fixant une croix dans la case de la rponse de votre choix. Donnez la rponse qui traverse en premier votre esprit. Il n'y a pas
de bonnes ou de mauvaises rponses.
Jamais
Occasionnellement
Oui
Non
Rgulirement
Souvent
Trs souvent
3 fois
4 fois
5 fois ou plus
3 fois
4 fois
5 fois ou plus
Vous discuter de la politique avec vos amis?

Vous discutez de la politique avec dans votre famille (avec votre mari, vos parents,
votre sur, votre frre)?
Vous avez dj particip une manifestation/runion de protestation/

sit-in? *
* Si votre rponse est oui, veillez continuer le questionnaire. Si votre rponse est non, veillez passer la question daprs.
1 fois
2 fois
Oui
Non
Si oui, combien de fois vous avez particip?
Vous avez dj sign une ptition? *

* Si votre rponse est oui, veillez continuer le questionnaire. Si votre rponse est non, veillez passer la question daprs
1 fois
2 fois
Oui
Non
Si oui, combien de fois vous avez sign une ptition?
Vous avez vot aux lections de 2007?

tes-vous ou avez vous t un membre dun parti politique?
tes-vous ou avez vous t un candidat llection, lgislative ou aux lections
communales?
tes-vous ou avez vous t un membre dune association/ONG?
40
Certainement non
Je ne crois pas
Je ne sais pas
Peut-tre
Certainement
oui
Dans lavenir, vous avez lintention de participer une manifestation/ runion de

protestation/ sit-in?
Est ce que vous avez lintention de voter aux lections communales de 2009?
Est ce que vous tes prt signer une ptition a lavenir?
Est ce que vous considrez tre un membre dun parti politique?
Est ce que vous considrez tre un membre dune association/ONG
Est ce que vous avez lambition de vous prsenter candidat aux lections lgislatives
ou communales?
Partie II: Les questions suivantes portent sur vos croyances sur les hommes, les femmes et la politique. S'il vous plat rpondez aux questions en cochant une
croix dans la case de la rponse de votre choix. Donnez la rponse qui traverse le premier votre esprit. S'il vous plat n'oubliez pas quil n'ya pas de bonnes ou
de mauvaises rponses.
Je nie
compltement
Je ne suis pas
daccord
Je ne sais pas
Je suis daccord
Je suis tout
fait daccord
Je crois que la plupart des hommes marocains trouvent inadquat si les femmes assistent
une runion de protestation.
Je crois que la plupart des hommes ne croient pas en femmes candidates aux lections.
Je crois que la plupart des hommes marocains trouvent inadquat si les femmes parlent de
la politique.
Je crois que la plupart des hommes marocains trouvent inconvenable ce quune femme
signe une ptition.
Je crois que la plupart des hommes marocains considrent inconvenable si les femmes
votent aux lections.
Parfois, la politique et le gouvernement semblent si compliqu quune personne comme
moi ne peut pas vraiment comprendre ce qui se passe.
Les gens comme moi sont gnralement bien qualifis pour participer des activits
politiques et de prise de dcision de notre pays.
J'ai l'impression d'avoir une assez bonne comprhension des questions politiques
importantes dans notre socit.
Aujourd'hui, les problmes sont si difficiles, je pense que je ne pouvais pas savoir
suffisamment avec des ides qui pourraient les rsoudre.
Je sens que je pouvais faire un bon travail aussi dans la politique comme la plupart des
responsables politiques nous lisons.
Je crois que les hommes et les femmes sont galement qualifis pour participer la
politique.
41
Je nie
compltement
Je ne suis pas
daccord
Je ne sais pas
Je suis daccord
Je suis tout
fait daccord
Je crois que les hommes sont plus adaptes participer la vie politique que les femmes.
Je crois qu'il est inappropri pour les femmes de participer la vie politique.
Je ne pense pas que les agents publics sintressent a ce que les gens comme moi pensent
de la politique.
De manire gnrale, ceux que nous lisons la fonction publique perdent contact avec les
gens assez rapidement.
Les candidats des positions politiques sont intresss par de le vote des gens, mais pas
par leurs opinions.
Il existe de nombreuses faons pour les gens comme moi d'avoir un mot dire dans ce que
notre gouvernement fait.
Les hommes politiques sont censs tre des serviteurs du peuple, mais un trop grand
nombre d'entre eux tentent d'tre nos matres.
Il nya pas de diffrence sur qui je vote, parce que celui qui est lu fait ce qu'il ou elle
veut faire de toute faon.
Dans ce pays, un peu de gens ont tout le pouvoir politique et le reste d'entre nous n'ont rien
dire.
Peu importe ce que fait une personne: si les politiciens veulent couter ils vont nous
couter, et si elles ne veulent pas couter, ils ne le feront pas.
La plupart des agents de la fonction publique ne savent pas coutez, peu importe ce que je
fais.
Partie III: Les questions suivantes portent sur vos croyances religieuses. S'il vous plat rpondez aux questions en cochant une croix dans la case de la rponse
de votre choix. Donnez la rponse qui traverse le premier votre esprit. S'il vous plat n'oubliez pas quil n'ya pas de bonnes ou de mauvaises rponses.
Je nie
compltement
Je ne suis pas
daccord
Je ne sais pas
Je suis
daccord
Je suis tout
fait daccord
Je suis certain que Dieu existe.

Je prie Dieu pour obtenir de l'aide au cours dune mauvaise situation.
La vie et la mort suit un plan de Dieu.
Je crois que Dieu me protge contre les dommages.
Pendant les priodes de maladie, ma religion et mes croyances ont t renforces.
La prire ou la mditation m'a aid faire face pendant les priodes de maladie grave.
Je crois que Dieu ne me donnera pas un fardeau, que je ne peux pas porter.
42
Je nie
compltement
Je ne suis pas
daccord
Je ne sais pas
Je suis
daccord
Je suis tout
fait daccord
J'ai connu un sentiment d'espoir la suite de ma religion ou les croyances spirituelles.

La religion est importante dans mon quotidien dans ma vie.
J'ai connu la paix de l'esprit par le biais de ma prire et de mditation.
Je crois que Dieu peroit les hommes et les femmes comme gales.
Je crois que Dieu donne aux hommes et aux femmes des fins diffrentes dans leur vie.
Je crois que Dieu peroit le rle des femmes la maison plus que les hommes.
Je pense que Dieu considre les hommes et les femmes gaux et peuvent accomplir les mmes
tches dans la vie aussi bien.
Je crois que Dieu peroit le rle des hommes l'extrieur de la maison plus que les femmes.
Partie IV: Enfin, je voudrais quelques informations gnrales de vous. S'il vous plat marquez le cercle de votre rponse ou remplissez une rponse sur les
points. S'il vous plat notez que vos rponses sur ces questions seront traites entirement anonyme ainsi.
1. tes-vous mari?
O Oui
2. Vous tes combien dedans votre famille (exclusivement vous)?
membres de famille
3. Vous avez quel ge?
ans
4. Quel est votre niveau dinstruction?
O Non
O Primaire
O Secondaire (collge)
O Bac et plus
O Universitaire
O Niveau Bac (lyce)
5. Vous pouvez cocher la case qui correspond votre revenue mensuelle?

O Moins que 3500 Dhs
O 10000 15000 Dhs
O 3500 5000 Dhs
O 5000 10000 Dhs
O 15000 20000 Dhs
Plus que 20000 Dhs
C'est la fin du questionnaire. Merci beaucoup davoir rpondu aux questions. Avez-vous des questions sur les travaux de recherche ou voulez-vous tre
inform des rsultats? S'il vous plat envoyez un e-mail l'adresse suivante: s1562029@student.rug.nl
43
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Political participation of women: the case of Morocco

An explorative study at the influence of gender roles, religious beliefs,

Master thesis, February 2009

Prof. Dr. Sabine Otten

Political participation of women: the case of Morocco

Political participation of women: the case of Morocco

Meta-stereotype and internal political efficacy

Possible other predictors of political participation

Internal political efficacy

External political efficacy

Age, Marital status, Social-economic class and Level of Education

Instructions to the questioner

Table 1: descriptive statistics for the main variables

Internal political efficacy

External political efficacy

Impact of socio-demographic variables

Further noteworthy results

Figure 2: Residual Plot of the variable gender roles

Internal political efficacy

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)

Main effect Internal political efficacy

Main effect Meta-stereotype

Interpretation of research results

A report with the UNESCO estimates can be found on http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer

Suggestions for further research

Do you discuss political issues with your friends?

Do you discuss political issues with members of your

Did you ever attend a protest meeting or

If yes to question 3: How often did you participate?

Have you ever signed a petition?

If yes to question 4: How often did you sign a

Did you vote in the parliamentary elections of 2007?

Are you a member or have you been a member of a

In the future, will you consider attending a protest

In the future, will you consider being a member of a

I feel certain that God in some form exists.

I pray to God for help during bad times.

Ones life and death follows a plan from God.

I believe God protects me from harm.

During times of illness, my religious or spiritual beliefs

I have experienced a sense of hope as a result of my

I believe God perceives men and women as equal.

I believe God gives men and women different purposes

I believe most Moroccan men find it inappropriate if

Sometimes politics and government seem so

I believe that men and women are not equally

2. With how many family members do you live (excl. yourself)?

3. What is your age?

4. What is your level of education?

O Secondaire (collge) (1)

O Niveau Bac (lyce) (2)

O Bac et plus (3)

5. Can you give an indication of the monthly income of your household?

O 3500 5000 Dhs (1)

O 5000 10000 Dhs (2)

O 10000 15000 Dhs (3)

O 15000 20000 Dhs (4)

More than 20000 Dhs (5)

9.9 Questionnaire in French

Questionnaire: lopinion des femmes

Questionnaire lopinion des femmes

Vous discuter de la politique avec vos amis?

Vous avez dj particip une manifestation/runion de protestation/

Si oui, combien de fois vous avez particip?