The Gender Gap in Second Language Acquisition: Gender Differences in the Acquisition of Dutch among Immigrants from 88 Countries with 49 Mother Tongues

Abstract

Gender differences were analyzed across countries of origin and continents, and across mother tongues and language families, using a large-scale database, containing information on 27,119 adult learners of Dutch as a second language. Female learners consistently outperformed male learners in speaking and writing proficiency in Dutch as a second language. This gender gap remained remarkably robust and constant when other learner characteristics were taken into account, such as education, age of arrival, length of residence and hours studying Dutch. For reading and listening skills in Dutch, no gender gap was found. In addition, we found a general gender by education effect for all four language skills in Dutch for speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Female language learners turned out to profit more from higher educational training than male learners do in adult second language acquisition. These findings do not seem to match nurture-oriented explanatory frameworks based for instance on a human capital approach or gender-specific acculturation processes. Rather, they seem to corroborate a nature-based, gene-environment correlational framework in which language proficiency being a genetically-influenced ability interacting with environmental factors such as motivation, orientation, education, and learner strategies that still mediate between endowment and acquiring language proficiency at an adult stage.

From Early Starters to Late Finishers? A Longitudinal Study of Early Foreign Language Learning in School

“…Our understanding of gender differences in SLA is often based on “common knowledge” (van der Slik, van Hout, & Schepens, , p. 1) and the “widespread belief… that females tend to be better L2 learners than males” (Saville‐Troike, , p. 90). Although focusing on adult learners, van der Slik et al.’s investigation of gender differences in SLA among immigrants from 88 countries who speak 49 mother tongues in the Netherlands ( N = 27,119) has contributed valuable insight to the discussion of gender differences in L2 learning.…”

Psychological individual differences as predictors of refugees’ local language proficiency

“…This model contends that there are three general determinants of immigrants' local language acquisition: (a) exposure, that is, the extent to which immigrants hear and read the local language, (b) incentives, that is, the advantages one can obtain by mastering the local language weighted against the costs of learning the local language, and (c) efficiency, that is, the innate abilities to learn and acquire a new language (Chiswick & Miller, 2007). Based on this model, a number of sociodemographic predictors of local language acquisition have been identified, including gender (e.g., Beiser & Hou, 2000;Kristen, Mühlau, & Schacht, 2016;Van der Slik, Van Hout, & Schepens, 2015), length of stay in the country of residence (e.g., Carliner, 2000;Van Tubergen & Kalmijn, 2005), age of arrival (e.g., Kristen et al, 2016), and premigration education level (Beiser & Hou, 2000;Hayfron, 2001;Hou & Beiser, 2006;Van Tubergen, 2010). Mental health has also been studied often among immigrants and refugees (e.g., see Fazel et al, 2005;Porter & Haslam, 2005), and good mental health has frequently been associated with better local language acquisition (Beiser & Hou, 2001;Chiswick & Miller, 2001;Van Tubergen & Kalmijn, 2005; for exceptions, see Van Niejenhuis, Van der Werf, & Otten, 2015;Van Tubergen, 2010).…”

On Revisiting the Sex Differences in Language Acquisition: An Etiological Perspective

“…As Uster (2008) maintains, the structures of male and female brains indicate the ways about their learning patterns, memory, and retention. In fact, taking into accounts the different biology of the sexual brains results in serious pedagogical implications.…”

“…To put some examples, Uster (2008), maintains that in order to develop males' social skills, teachers must increase employment of group work and pair work to help boys socialize. There are also some implications to take into account in the classroom when the characteristics of the female brain are considered.…”