Comments on: Bilingualism is good for you! … if you are a girl …

By: S_A_

S_A_ — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 01:37:00 +0000

This is a great article, Prof. Piller, thank you! I am actually a bit surprised as I did not really expect the outcome of the study. I would have never thought the difference between boys and girls in bilingual proficiency would be because of a social issue. I hope for the future that bilingualism and Spanish will be seen by both genders as valuable for their future lives and I hope that this change comes soon, as well as a change in the way bilingualism is regarded for men and women in terms of jobs.

By: Dhanisa Kamila

Dhanisa Kamila — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 15:16:00 +0000

I had never thought that bilingualism can be highly related to gender. It is quite surprising to me knowing that the reason of the USA’s Hispanic migrant girls and the boys difference in academic and career success, despite of their bilingualism, is because of the values in their society. In my home country Indonesia, most humanities and language studies’ students are girls. In my department in my bachelor degree, we only had 3 boys out of 35 students in total. Language and humanities are not really popular among boys. However, bilingualism in Indonesia is still an additional value whether you’re a girl or a boy. It’s a positive factor and many people including boys are giving positive outcomes in this matter.

By: Long leg

Long leg — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 00:29:00 +0000

As many commentators above, it was a bit surprising that bilingualism has a relationship with genders. Personally, I think both genders can get equal chances when they are bilingual or biliterate. However, I still agree that females could attain higher proficiency of language than males do. And bilingual females, of course, could get more success in school than males as well. This isn’t because I’m a girl, but this is a fact I have encountered until now. The only sadness of this article is that after all learning efforts and success at school, females couldn’t get equal prestige jobs or remuneration as males in male-dominated industries.

By: Reem

Reem — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 15:32:00 +0000

The advantages of bilingualism are established through studies that lead to better career prospects. Gender also seems to form one of the key factors playing a fundamental role into language literacy, which means that language learning and teaching has to incorporate the dynamics that keep specific approaches to gain literacy. Such studies and researches would inform theoretical assumptions that may be critical in instituting language learning structures that would be suited to learners of different genders. For instance, considering Saudi Arabia’s gender based education system, maybe theoretical underpinnings like this one would promote the efforts of advancing female language literacy and empowering women while making them have more career options in such community.

By: 44277660

44277660 — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 01:06:00 +0000

I have read through many articles on this web page but this article is, to me, the most fascinating one as it reveals a matter that I have never thought of which is bilingualism has a gender. As mentioned in the article, while bilingualism does wonders for girls in terms of education and occupational prestige, there is no relationship between bilingualism and income. This is such a sad finding as students perform well in school in order to later succeed in life and earn high income. Things are different in my home country (Vietnam). Since the importance of English is increasing significantly, bilingualism can ensure not only occupational prestige but also good remuneration.

By: NAMI NARIMATSU

NAMI NARIMATSU — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 14:04:00 +0000

This is an impressed article about the variety of bilingual people and the effects on education and occupation. I was surprised at the result that biliterate girls tended to get higher occupational prestige than English-speaking women and biliterate men because I thought that bilingual people generally had benefits related to education and occupation. This article got me to try to find various differences or influence of the wide range of bilingual levels. Personally, considering my home country, Japan, the effect of areas where bilingual people take education and work, such as inner, outer, or expanding circle, seems to influence their success of education and occupation.

By: ALEXANDROS BINOS

ALEXANDROS BINOS — Sun, 20 Aug 2017 10:30:00 +0000

This article is a great insight which raises the issue of gender and bilingualism amongst Hispanic bilinguals in the USA. Although the sample was large, i don’t know how much it could be generalised to a whole population or to other migrant communities in different settings across the world. I believe that socioeconomic backgrounds immensely influence the success rates from high school onwards amongst bilingual students rather than gender. Also, I don’t know how far Latino-Australians boy would appear macho at a job interview if they were bilingual. One would think on the contrary.

By: Jay Mi Tan

Jay Mi Tan — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 04:39:00 +0000

It is interesting to note that bilingualism is gendered, and that it favours women’s occupational prestige but not necessarily their income. Gender equality in workplaces have been debated numeral times, and it is quite interesting (sometimes hilarious) to know the thoughts of society. If all factors being equal (language proficiency, qualifications, working hours, etc) between both men and women, equality should be practised. Just because one is bilingual or have a higher qualification, does not necessarily equal superiority or higher renumeration. Thus, it is not surprising that the findings found [“no relationship between bilingualism, including biliteracy, in English and Spanish, and income”]. It is quite disheartening though, when statements are framed in a way such as, [We know that “men have higher incomes than women despite having lower average levels of educational attainment and that the attributes that benefit women in school do not necessarily translate into labor market rewards” (Lee and Hatteberg 2015, p. 19)]. It is statements like this, which encourage women to evolve from being submissive to being aggressive and vocal, in fighting for their rights for equality in workplaces. However, at the end of the day, I believe that if one fights for gender equality, it basically means everything needs to be equal (paid maternity/paternity leave, flexible work hours for both genders, no overtime because spending time with mom and dad are equally important, etc), which might not be business feasible.

By: Thi Dung DOAN (Julie)

Thi Dung DOAN (Julie) — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 07:43:00 +0000

I was impressed with the title of the article and I could not wait to read it. However, I went from being excited to get that girls in relevant studies achieved higher levels of bilingual proficiency than boys did, and then felt a bit ‘down’ as I learnt that such higher educational attainment did not go in parallel with the income the girls were expected to get. I was wondering why the benefits they received in schools could not be transferred to their workplaces, but then I quickly think of many similar situations I have heard of or read about. It is true that there would be some kinds of work that men will do better than women, but if they are responsible for equal workload and there is still unequal payment, it is not merely the issue in the field of education to think of.

By: THI THU NGAN DONG

THI THU NGAN DONG — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 12:40:00 +0000

Thank you for a very informative article. Frankly, I never thought that bilingualism could be gendered or a biliterate could be disadvantageous to his monolingual colleagues. In Vietnam (my home country), bilingualism is most likely to be a plus in a job interview.
As far as I’m concerned, it is not fair when people hold prejudice against Hispanic male immigrants in the USA. Moreover, I wonder whether it is the case in Australia where there are many bilingual immigrants.