The relationship between gender and public engagement in the literature is unclear. Unlike with other factors, research has not conclusively shown whether gender affects involvement in public engagement activities and, if it does so, in what direction. This article aims to investigate this ambiguity and intends to contribute to the understanding of underlying factors. Using survey data from a large national sample of Italian academics from all disciplines (N = 5123), we find a gender gap in public engagement activities in the mass media and not in community-based activities. These results suggest a different analytical approach for investigating gender differences in public engagement.

文献中性别与公众参与之间的关系尚不清楚。与其他因素不同，研究尚未最终表明性别是否会影响公众参与活动的参与，如果会影响，会影响到什么方向。本文旨在调查这种模糊性，并旨在促进对潜在因素的理解。使用来自所有学科的意大利学者（ N = 5123）的大量全国样本的调查数据，我们发现在大众媒体的公众参与活动中存在性别差距，而不是在基于社区的活动中。这些结果提出了一种不同的分析方法来调查公众参与中的性别差异。