Event
Student Experiences of Gender-Inclusive Language in the Spanish Undergraduate Classroom
Zoom presentation
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
12:00–1:00 p.m. (CDT)
Even though Spanish conventionally has a binary grammatical gender system (i.e., masculine and feminine), various approaches have been taken in recent years to achieve a more equal linguistic representation of all genders (e.g., using both male and feminine at once such as “todos y todas” or adopting a new morpheme that is not associated with the traditional binary genders, as in “latinx” or “todes” instead of “latino” or “todos”). However, the gender-inclusive forms are yet to be accepted by many native speakers. Not unexpectedly, students who study Spanish as a foreign language are still unlikely to be exposed to gender-inclusive varieties (Morales-Vidal & Cassany 2020).
The Inclusive Language Instruction Research Group (LangIn) surveyed and interviewed undergraduate students of Spanish at the University of Minnesota about their experiences with and opinions of gender-inclusive language to examine how students learn and understand gender expressions and inclusivity in the language classroom. Furthermore, the study seeks to contribute to the creation of gender-inclusive classroom environments by articulating what kind of gender-related topics, materials, and pedagogy are desired by students themselves.
This event is sponsored by the Gender Equity Grant from the Women's Center and the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota.