Hen - ett litet men omtvistat ord. En kvantitativ studie om socionomstudenters attityder till det könsneutrala pronomenet hen.
(2012) SOPA63 20121School of Social Work
- Abstract
- The aim of our study was to examine the attitudes towards the gender-neutral pronoun “hen” among social work students at Lund University. “Hen” is a gender-neutral pronoun that is used instead of “he”, “him”, “she” or “her” in situations where gender is irrelevant or unknown. Over the past three years “hen” has been increasingly mentioned, used and debated in Swedish media. Our perception of the ongoing debate was that a larger part of the Swedish population expressed a negative attitude toward the gender-neutral pronoun. To examine our hypothesis we produced and distributed surveys to 180 social work students who answered questions and statements concerning the use of “hen” in the Swedish language. To analyse the results of our study we... (More)
- The aim of our study was to examine the attitudes towards the gender-neutral pronoun “hen” among social work students at Lund University. “Hen” is a gender-neutral pronoun that is used instead of “he”, “him”, “she” or “her” in situations where gender is irrelevant or unknown. Over the past three years “hen” has been increasingly mentioned, used and debated in Swedish media. Our perception of the ongoing debate was that a larger part of the Swedish population expressed a negative attitude toward the gender-neutral pronoun. To examine our hypothesis we produced and distributed surveys to 180 social work students who answered questions and statements concerning the use of “hen” in the Swedish language. To analyse the results of our study we applied the feminist perspective and the theory of the socialization process. The results showed that the majority of our respondents are negative to the change in language that a gender-neutral pronoun entails. The most frequent argument to demonstrate this point of view is that men are men and women are women and that this biological difference should not be questioned or modified. Even though the majority of the students oppose to the use of “hen” there are still those who find the new word practical in situations where gender is irrelevant. We found several interesting patterns in our results. One example is that the students can be in favour of “hen” in general, but when the use of the pronoun concerns children and upbringing a great majority are opposed. Another example is that students who have studied social work for a few years are far more liberal in their attitudes towards “hen” than those who have just started. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/2760159
- author
- Andersson, Emilie LU and Persson, Anna LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SOPA63 20121
- year
- 2012
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- hen, gender-neutral pronoun, social work students, feminist perspective, socialization process
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 2760159
- date added to LUP
- 2012-06-28 18:37:33
- date last changed
- 2012-06-28 18:37:33
@misc{2760159,
abstract = {{The aim of our study was to examine the attitudes towards the gender-neutral pronoun “hen” among social work students at Lund University. “Hen” is a gender-neutral pronoun that is used instead of “he”, “him”, “she” or “her” in situations where gender is irrelevant or unknown. Over the past three years “hen” has been increasingly mentioned, used and debated in Swedish media. Our perception of the ongoing debate was that a larger part of the Swedish population expressed a negative attitude toward the gender-neutral pronoun. To examine our hypothesis we produced and distributed surveys to 180 social work students who answered questions and statements concerning the use of “hen” in the Swedish language. To analyse the results of our study we applied the feminist perspective and the theory of the socialization process. The results showed that the majority of our respondents are negative to the change in language that a gender-neutral pronoun entails. The most frequent argument to demonstrate this point of view is that men are men and women are women and that this biological difference should not be questioned or modified. Even though the majority of the students oppose to the use of “hen” there are still those who find the new word practical in situations where gender is irrelevant. We found several interesting patterns in our results. One example is that the students can be in favour of “hen” in general, but when the use of the pronoun concerns children and upbringing a great majority are opposed. Another example is that students who have studied social work for a few years are far more liberal in their attitudes towards “hen” than those who have just started.}},
author = {{Andersson, Emilie and Persson, Anna}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Hen - ett litet men omtvistat ord. En kvantitativ studie om socionomstudenters attityder till det könsneutrala pronomenet hen.}},
year = {{2012}},
}