Filipino Esl Students Androgyny Trait, Awareness And Attitude In Gender-Fair Language

The study generally aimed to assess ESL students’ gender trait, level of awareness and attitude of gender fair language. It used the descriptive-correlational research design that specifically described the androgyny trait score and investigated the relationship between their androgyny, awareness and attitude of gender fair language. One hundred five tertiary students from the College of Teacher Education were utilized as the respondents of the study. A survey instrument composed of IV parts served as the main data gathering of the study. Part I dealt with the demographic profiles of the students while part II determined the Androgyny Trait score. The instrument was adopted from the psychological instrument developed by Bem (1975) but was modified to fit it to the context of the study intended for Filipino audience. The level of awareness in Part III was self-constructed but was pilot-tested for validation. Questions were patterned from the study of gender stereotyping of the students in language developed by Dr. Jane Bluestein (2013). Part IV assessed the attitude of the students toward gender fair language. It was adopted from the 21 items Inventory of Attitude towards Sexist and Non-Sexist language developed by Parks and Roberton, (2004). The data gathered were analyzed through frequency, percentage counts, percentage distribution, means and standard deviations. Meanwhile, Pearson Product moment correlation was employed to determine if the androgyny and awareness of the students is related to their attitude towards gender-fair language. Furthermore, t-test was used to determine the association of difference between the awareness and attitude of the students. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was also used to determine the difference on the awareness and attitude towards gender fair language when grouped according to age, mother tongue, and year level. The data gathered were analyzed with the use of Statistical Software at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that most of the ESL students are female, 17 years old, Iloco and fourth year level. Most of them are androgynous and are generally aware of gender fair language. Moreover, as to attitude towards Gender Fair language, findings revealed that the students are indeed aware that sexist language disregard or belittles either men or women but were found to be limitedly aware of sexist terms yet are utmostly willing to change sexist words. Students from the higher year level were found to have better awareness in gender fair language as compared to the lower ones. Further, students’ belief on sexist language and age relates to students awareness in gender fair language. It was then concluded that the more positive ESL students’ attitude in gender fair language is, the higher their awareness