Descriptive statistics from the student questionnaires will be presented first (see Table 1), followed by inferential statistics. Not all the 258 students responded to every questionnaire item. Approximately half the students had heard of the issue of language and gender (Item 1). As to whether gender-exclusive or gender-inclusive English had been taught at their primary and secondary schools (Item 2), of those students who could remember the issue arising, 31% indicated gender-exclusive, 6% gender-inclusive, and 35% said either was acceptable. At the junior college where they were currently studying, of those who could remember, the percentage of students indicating that gender-exclusive was taught (Item 3), fell to 19%, while 6% indicated gender-inclusive, and 40% said either was acceptable. As to their own writing (Item 4), 61% reported using gender-exclusive, 29% gender-inclusive, and 10% stated that they could not remember. When asked if gender-exclusive was unfair to females (Item 5), 65% replied that it was not and 35% that it was.

Table 1 Past Experiences, Current Practices, and Views (percentages appear in parentheses)

Chi-square analyses of responses to questionnaire item 4 showed no significant difference in the number of females and males reporting use of gender-exclusive or gender-inclusive English in their writing (X²=.23). However, on item 5 significantly more females indicated that they felt gender-exclusive English was unfair to females (X²=15.98).

Interviews

In their interviews, the six students gave several reasons why some of them preferred gender-exclusive English: it is the conventional way, teachers had told them to use it, alternatives were unfamiliar or clumsy, e.g., "An architect should keep his or her clients informed" meant extra words and effort, and gender-exclusive was not wrong. On the other hand, one male who used gender-inclusive stated that he has asked one of his secondary school teachers about which to use. After being told it was optional, he elected to use gender-inclusive because he saw it as fairer. All students seemed to feel that the language people heard and saw did not have much impact on their thought or action.

In their interviews, the four teachers stated that they were all aware of the issue of gender-exclusive/inclusive English. Not surprisingly, the British interviewee became familiar with the general issue of language and gender the earliest, in the 1970s in his home country. He now makes a conscious effort to use gender-inclusive. One Singaporean stated that he first became aware of the issue in 1987 while working on a Ministry of Education project to write history textbooks. A British consultant changed "mankind" to "humanity", creating a good deal of discussion, after which this teacher decided to use gender-inclusive. Thus, from these two teachers we see examples of the ripple effect being delivered in person.

One female teacher noted that students were exposed to a lot of gender-inclusive English, as they read periodicals from the U.S. The effect of these periodicals would constitute a less personal, but perhaps more powerful for being more pervasive, form of ripple effect from an Inner Circle country. The teachers felt their students used more gender-exclusive, but all accepted either gender-exclusive or gender-inclusive forms, with the exception of singular forms of "they", e.g. "An architect should keep their clients informed". However, there was less unanimity as to the teachers' own language use. Perhaps surprisingly, the two males used more gender-inclusive than did the two females.

Writing script

Table 2 below shows the coding of the writing scripts into the six categories by sex of the writer. The difference between females and males was not significant. When categories 2-5, the categories which involve at least some use of explicit gender-inclusive English, are combined, it can be seen that more than half the students were using at least some gender-inclusive forms in their writing, not to mention the fact that category 6, into which 17% of students fell, can also be counted as gender-inclusive. Results of the chi-square test showed no significant difference in the use of gender-exclusive/inclusive forms between females and males (X²=1.92).

Table 2 Coding Of Students' Writing Scripts (percentages appear in parentheses)

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