Date of Award

12-2024

Document Type

Campus Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Linguistics, Applied

First Advisor

Kimberly Urbanski

Second Advisor

Corinne Etienne

Third Advisor

Meike Wernicke, Lai Zimman

Abstract

One in four LGBTQ+ young people in the United States identifies outside of the gender binary, generating an ever-evolving constellation of identity terms and pronouns. Many study French and Spanish classes at school, languages based in a binary grammatical system classifying all nouns and corresponding modifiers as “masculine” or “feminine.” Given the hostile political climate towards queer youth and the power of language for (in)validating trans identities, French and Spanish classes may pose particular challenges for non-binary students. Though vital for building inclusive classrooms, accounts from non-binary language learners have been barely documented in research. This dissertation asks: What aspects of non-binary students’ contexts impact their ability to be themselves in their French and Spanish classes? How do students exercise agency within these spaces? How do students’ contexts and agentive strategies relate to their investment in language learning? As a queer, cisgender teacher-researcher, I adopted a participatory approach grounded in trans epistemologies to create an online community called the Non-Binary Language Alliance with twelve non-binary high school students. Using surveys, interviews, journals, focus groups, and art, generated individually and in interaction, I conducted reflexive thematic analysis with a discourse analytic approach. Analysis revealed multiple constraints for students in their language classrooms: binary grammatical gender, lack of queer curricular representation, queerphobia among peers, and teacher-student power dynamics, while supportive peers and teachers were seen as affordances. Participants exercised agency to navigate and transform their contexts by: innovating in French and Spanish, creating queer representation through headcanon, drawing on community to “queer” their contexts, disengaging from stressful situations as a coping strategy, and taking on the role of language educators. Finally, participants’ investment was associated with their perceived level of agency within the classroom and the degree to which teachers and peers shared their labor of research and advocacy. These findings illustrate the agency and innovative power of marginalized and minoritized youth while highlighting the role of mediating social factors such as language ideologies, classroom power dynamics, and community. The study offers recommendations to language teachers for increasing non-binary students’ investment in language learning by laboring alongside students and fostering their agency.

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