Relations between gender stereotyping and foreign language attainment: The mediating role of language learners’ anxiety and self‐efficacy

Abstract

Background. Gender stereotyping of academic domains has long been a major issue in education. However, previous research has mainly focused on male-dominated fields and women's disadvantage in such fields. Little attention has been paid to the fields of study, such as foreign language learning, which are typically stereotyped as female domains.Aims. This study aimed to investigate whether relations between (1) learners' gender stereotypes about English as a foreign language (EFL) learning and language attainment and (2) learner perceptions of teacher stereotypes of EFL learning and language attainment were mediated by anxiety and self-efficacy.Sample. Data were collected from 701 university students (M age = 19.7 years, 49.4% male) learning EFL in three Turkish universities.Method. Data were collected over three waves. Multi-group structural equation modelling approach was used to analyse the data.Results. Results showed the relations between learners' gender stereotypes about EFL learning, and language attainment were mediated by self-efficacy. Self-efficacy also mediated the relationship between learner perceptions of teacher stereotypes of EFL learning and language attainment, but only for women. Language anxiety was not a mediator between gender stereotypes and attainment in either model tested.Conclusions. Findings show that gender stereotypes about EFL learning might affect learners' language attainment by altering their self-efficacy. Helping learners to maximise their self-efficacy will therefore be beneficial for their language attainment.From early adolescence, women and men start choosing different fields of study and occupations, often resulting in gender disparities in certain disciplines (Barone, 2011; van der Vleuten, Jaspers, Maas, & van der Lippe, 2016). While men are often interested in scientific or technical fields of education or careers, women are more likely to pursue careers that are more humanistic and care-oriented. Such imbalance could, in turn, be used to justify and reinforce gender stereotypes about academic ability (i.e., 'men are good at mathematics'; 'women are good at languages') that are not grounded in actual competencies. These stereotypes are also believed to increase with age (Hill & Lynch,

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