Beyond the Gender-Gap

Exploring Practice and Ideology in

Foreign Language Education in Ireland
9th International Gender and Language Association
Conference
City University of Hong Kong
19-21 May 2016
Jennifer Martyn
UCD Humanities Institute
University College Dublin
@jennimartyn

Gender, Sexuality, and the Irish

State
1995

Creation of the Irish Free State

Introduction of Divorce

1922

1990s-2010s

1973

Lifting of the Marriage Bar

1937

1973

1983

2016

Revelations of Institutional
Abuses
1993

1995

2003

2007

2010

2015

Passing of Marriage Equality

Referendum

Creation of the Republic of

Ireland

Decriminalization of
Homosexual Acts

Legalization of Contraception for

Family Planning purposes

1993

Passing of the Gender

Recognition Bill

1979

Eight Amendment of the

Constitution Act

2015

1983

It is difficult to ascertain where church began and state ended in regard

to the institutionalisation of individuals, public health and education
(Meaney 2010: 6)

Language Education in Ireland

(The Republic of) Ireland is an
officially bilingual state Irish is
first
official
language,
English
second
official
language.
Irish
remains L1 of minority
Secondary schooling is the most
common period of FL education
French, German and Spanish are
the most commonly provided FLs
Third
language
requirement,
after English and Irish, required for
matriculation to many university
courses
Absence of FL education policy
at the national level

Gender and Schooling

Educationally sex-segregated
issues of gender & sexuality not
prioritised
30% of primary schools and
39% of secondary schools are
single-sex
majority of schools maintain
Roman Catholic ethos no
separation between church
and state in most public
Gender-gap in subject uptake secondary school subjects
education
remain heavily gendered
More girls than boys study a foreign language (FL)
Knock-on effect for university & higher education
women vastly outnumber men in FL programmes & men
continue to be overrepresented in STEM fields

Research Literature
Similar gender-gap in FL education (attitudes, uptake and
attainment) across the world, e.g.

the UK (Sunderland 2004; Board and Tinsley 2014)

Canada (Kissau &Wierzalis 2008)
Australia (Carr and Pauwels 2006)
Japan (Kobayashi 2002)
Hong Kong (Lai 2005)

No research to-date in the Irish context

Linguistic Ethnography
Linguistic Ethnography (LE), a topic-oriented approach to data collection (Swann
and Maybin 2008; Shaw, Copland and Snell 2015)
[A]spects of everyday life and cultural practices of a social group (Shaw et al 2015:
7)
Distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic is artificial (Blommaert & Jie 2010:
8)
Bricolage of conceptual frameworks (Rampton, Maybin & Roberts 2015: 36)

Focus on socially-mediated & interactionally-achieved

sociocultural linguistics (Bucholtz and Hall 2005)

identity

processes

in

Language ideologies that shape language education & outcomes (e.g. Shannon 1999)
& which are inseparable from individual and group identity (Pavlenko & Piller 2001;
Kroskrity 2004)

St. Murtaghs* Secondary

School
Co-educational secondary school in the
west of Ireland village of Loughmr*
350 students approx. enrolled
English-medium instruction
Ethnically homogenous
Catholic-ethos

*Pseudonyms

Data:
Semi-structured interviews with 1
teacher and 11 students
Classroom observation of 1 German
class and 2 French classes
Generalised observation

Gender in Practice and Discourse:

School Space
Boys and girls use space differently
in St. Murtaghs:
Boys and girls
classrooms

sit

separately

Boys optimise use of

schoolyard and play areas

space

in
in

Boys have more regular and frequent

use of sports facilities
Space and built environment
repercussions for life chances and is
self-reinforcing
(Schilling
1991;
Kuhlmann 2013)

Example of French classroom layout

Gender in Practice and Discourse:

Talking about Gender
Some girls employed an us-them binary to assert their difference
(Duszak 2002) or distinction (Bucholtz and Hall 2005) from the boys:

Ciara and Sarah, second year students (aged 14-15

approx.)
Jennifer So, yeah, okay, I hope those boys arent messing.
Jennifer [Eh.
Sarah
I don't think they could hear over them[selves.
Jennifer No, [no.
Ciara
[laughs]
Jennifer Theyre very loud [alright.
Ciara
Yeah.
Sarah
The difference between us and them [[laughs].

Language Learning: Foreign

Language Uptake
FL options: French or German
Studying a FL is compulsory at St. Murtaghs more difficult to
discern gendered patterns of uptake
3 determining factors involved in language choice:

Prior exposure to a FL, through holidays abroad, or primary

school instruction

Peer group pupils follow each other (James, second year)

Heritage & ethnolinguistic background

Language Learning: Authenticating

Existing Language Ideologies
Jack, third year student (15 years old), studies French
No, like if you had a choice in Leavin Cert, youd-we Id drop it
anyway, (unintelligible). It depends on the type of person is like, if
theyre into, like, something like Sciences and Maths or
something or theyd be into languages like. But like if I could Id
drop it.

Jack reproduces and authenticates (Bucholtz and Hall 2005)

existing discourse of Languages/Humanities Vs STEM
Parallelling of educational/professional binary with gender binary
Reinforces gendering of subjects and professions

Language Learning: Adequation

James, second year student, (14 years old), studies German
Jennifer E:h...and you, is it...I think it might be a requirement to get
into certain colleges...a language, a foreign language.
James
Yeah you have to have three languages I think.
Jennifer And is that a factor for you then? Do you want to go to
college and stuff?
James
I do yeah...but I would nev- I wouldnt want to go into like
teaching or something like that...itd be.

James associates or adequates foreign language study at university

with school teaching, in Ireland a female-dominated profession, less
prestigious than STEM professions

Conclusions & Implications

Church continues to exert influence over Irish state institutions, incl.
schools
Students live in a binary reality (Hultgren 2008) reinforced and
maintained by the institution through micro, routinized practices
Binary reality extends to discourse of language education, the
professions & STEM versus humanities
Implications for identity development, institutional gender policing,
language uptake & investment at all levels, & uncritical acceptance of
how things are (Carr and Pauwels 2006: 43)
Broader issues of gender and schooling in Ireland must be addressed
before potential future initiatives to promote languages can be
successful

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