Masculinity theory and male motivation in foreign language learning : a high school social perception of the French language

Abstract

Young men are innately averse to threatening traditional gender ideologies, preferring to exhibit socially acceptable masculine behaviors as a means of building on their masculine capital, or “man points” (de Visser & McDonnell, 2013; de Visser, Smith & McDonnell, 2009). This paper uses R.W. Connell’s (2005) theory of hegemonic masculinity, de Visser’s (2013) concept of masculine capital, Bandura’s (1993) theory of social learning and Bourdieu’s (2002) theory of masculine domination in order to better understand why high school aged males appear to find studying foreign languages other than French more appealing. Qualitative research methods involve the story completion method in which students completed prompts regarding foreign language course selection for both a male and female student and teacher interviews in order to answer questions such as: 1) How are languages understood to be gendered?, 2) What are students’ views on French language learning?, 3) How do high school aged males select their foreign language courses?, and 4) How can male students be better motivated to select French foreign language courses? These questions will aide in better establishing the social and psychological pressures revolving around “man points” which play a role in male students avoiding learning the French language when given a choice (de Visser, 2013, p. 9). Findings revealed that students in general would be more likely to select French as a foreign language if they saw it as a benefit to their future educational or career goals, believed it had greater use worldwide, and for males, if it strengthened their masculine capital.