Examining the sexist language use and views of early childhood teachers

Date

2023-5

Author

Erzincan, Nilgün

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The purpose of this study was to explore the sexist language use of early childhood teachers and reveal their views on sexist language use. Ten early childhood teachers working in public kindergartens in Ankara, Türkiye were included in the study. A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted, and the data was collected through creative writing activity and a semi-structured interview. The findings showed that early childhood teachers defined sexist language in two ways, as discrimination in language and communication differences. All of the participants also expressed their views about sexism in Turkish and what causes sexism in language. The present study also revealed that early childhood teachers think that sexist language use in society definitely needs to be reduced for some reasons. However, a few early childhood teachers have doubts about changing sexist language use. The findings of the study also indicated teachers' views on the effects of sexist language use on children as well as their views on reducing sexist language use in early childhood settings. Another finding from the research was related to participants' self-evaluations regarding the use of sexist language in their daily lives and early childhood settings and how they included sexist language in their creative writing. Accordingly, some teachers think they do not use sexist language, while others' sexist language use is affected by social interaction and language use habits. However, findings from the creative writing activity indicated that all early childhood teachers included sexist language in their writings at the word, sentence, and discourse levels.

Subject Keywords

Sexist language, Sexist language in early childhood, Early childhood education, Early childhood teachers

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/103488

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis