Japanese Students’ Perception and Attitudes of Gender-inclusive English: A Case Study at Nagoya University

The movement for the teaching of gender-inclusive language in foreign language education has been an on-going phenomenon. Despite the various reforms within native contexts, such as the inclusion of singular they, there are often debates over including these forms into curriculum. The goal of this study is not to address this issue from the institutional level, but to use a bottom-up approach by investigating undergraduate students’ perception and attitudes of gender-inclusive English at Nagoya University. To do this, a questionnaire was given to two undergraduate Advanced English courses. The main research questions in this study involve how much exposure students have had to gender-inclusive language, their attitude towards gender-inclusive language, and how does exposure to gender-inclusive language effect socialization to English. The questionnaire includes binary questions choosing between a gender - inclusive sentence or gender-exclusive sentence, a scale measuring interest in gender-related issues or studies, and free written answers on students’ experiences and opinions on gender-inclusive English and education. An additional variable was added as students were given a guest lecture on gender -inclusive English and were then divided into pre-lecture and post-lecture groups. I hypothesized that students who take the questionnaire post-lecture would choose gender-inclusive answers more than those who took the questionnaire pre-lecture and that those who scored higher on the gender interest scale would choose gender-inclusive answers more than those who scored lower. Results show that students support the learning of gender-inclusive English overall and that those who took the questionnaire post -lecture chose gender-inclusive answers at higher rates. However, the relation between interest in gender -related issues and studies to gender-inclusive English was inconclusive. The paper then ends with suggestions for improving gender-inclusive English education.