The role of teachers’ language usage in the relationship between their awareness toward the concept of gender equality and gender pedagogy practice in upper primary schools

Adjustments teachers undertake to support gender equality in and through education will likewise raise the standard of instruction as a whole. Thus, to properly understand the teachers’ gender-responsive pedagogy through a feminist pedagogy lens, it is critical to grasp the mediating factors via a holistic approach. This study seeks to investigate the mediating effect of teachers’ language usage in the relationship between awareness of the concept of gender-responsive instruction and gender-responsive pedagogy practice. The study employed a correlational research design to develop a generalized framework which links the associations between study variables. It was conducted in Ethiopia’s South Gonder province with 305 teachers. Data were gathered between April 2023 and January 2024. A simple random sampling method was employed, ensuring that each member of the target population had an equal chance of being selected. A questionnaire was employed to gather data. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, MANOVA, Pearson correlation and Path analysis using Lisrel. As a result, teachers practiced language usage and gender-responsive pedagogy in the classroom was at low levels. Moreover, the relationship among school teachers’ awareness of the concept of gender equality classroom instruction, teachers’ language usage, and teachers’ gender-responsible classroom instruction were statistically significant, low to moderate, and positive. Finally, the finding showed that teachers’ language usage has a mediating effect on the relationship between their awareness of the concept of gender equality and gender-responsible classroom instruction. Teachers’ language usage serves as a mediating factor in the sense that their awareness of gender equality affects the way they communicate in the classroom, and this gender-sensitive communication, in turn, shapes their ability to deliver gender-responsible classroom instruction. Hence this study has a theoretical contribution to the existing literature and make teachers to become more accessible and responsive to a wider range of students across schools and so contribute to ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education (SDG 4).