What Are Social Work Faculty Experience with Using Gender Neutral Pronouns in the Classroom: A Phenomenlogical Study

Background and Purpose:  

There is currently little research on the use of gender neutral pronouns within the academic setting and there is no identified research on how the Social Work profession is addressing this emerging concept. However, while considering cultural competence, the role of gender and sexual expression is a vital component. 

This paper will address the large gap in the literature by starting a discussion of the use of gender neutral pronouns within the academic setting.  A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to explore if individual faculty members, social work programs, or universities were integrating gender neutral pronouns within their curriculum, delivery of content, professional communications, or through other modalities. This paper will also explore the impact of the integration of this culturally competent practice within the classroom setting through the lived experiences of the research participants.  

 Methods:

Fifteen, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Social Work faculty representing a variety of online and traditional universities from throughout the United States. Participants were recruited using a snowball sample technique.  This phenomenological study examined participants lived experiences of the integration of gender neutral pronouns.  Interviews elicited participants’ experiences regarding:  the understanding of gender neutral pronouns, how they are integrating the concept as a cultural competency within their classroom environment, and if the integration of gender neutral pronouns is being integrated within the School of Social Work’s program, or University. Participants also discussed how they have integrated or not integrated the use of gender neutral pronouns within the academic setting including classroom discussions, assignments, curriculum development, professional communications or through other modalities. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded thematically using HyperResearch qualitative software.

Findings:

This qualitative phenomenological study found that Social Work faculty consider the use of gender-neutral pronouns as an area of cultural competence (86%).  However only 26% of the participants were actively engage in integrating the use of gender neutral pronouns within the classroom, 13% reported their Social Work program have been discussing or integrating policies within their classrooms, and 100% reported that their Universities do not currently address any policy in relation to the use of gender-neutral pronouns within the classroom setting. 

The findings of this study also identified strategies developed and being used by the participants to integrate the use of gender neutral pronouns within the classroom setting including: no application, classroom discussions, assignments, curriculum development, professional communications and examples of other methods of integration of gender-neutral pronouns.

Conclusion and Implications:

The comprehensive literature review found a significant gap in research addressing the recognition or use of gender-neutral pronouns as a measurement of cultural competence within the academic setting. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted and found that this is an emerging topic that has been minimally addressed as individual faculty members or within programs and that Universities as a whole have not addressed the topic.  The findings of this study confirm the need of the Social Work profession to recognize, discuss, and integrate the culturally competent use of gender-neutral pronouns.