Publications.
Please find many of my publications below, along with their abstracts, related resources, and links to the full article on the publisher’s site wherever possible. You can also use the Research Gate and the contact buttons below to request copies of any publications to which you do not have access (for your personal, private use). I will be happy to provide access wherever copyright allows.
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Edited Volumes
Knisely, K. A. and Russell, E. L. (2024). Redoing linguistic worlds: Unmaking gender binaries, remaking gender pluralities. Multilingual Matters.
Language and gender are interconnected, social and relational acts through which we constantly remake our worlds. But what happens when our ways of doing gender cannot be neatly categorized into traditional binary systems, including not only the social groupings of roles, practices, and identities but also the forms and structures through which we do language? This book brings together a broad range of scholars to explore the undoing and redoing of gender binaries in non-Anglophone communities and contexts, in and through their linguistic and social reimaginings. Each of the contributions to this book reflects on this ongoing change and its place in our everyday lives, including the ways that its outcomes are both contested and fluid. This volume represents an important step in scholarship in language and gender, one that stands to inform a public increasingly aware of these remakings and one that calls on all of us to stand in the tensions of our own humanity and look through it for how our languaging might ‘do’ imaginary worlds that are more equitable, more connected, and more just for us all.
Discount codes for use on publisher’s website:
Related blog post: https://bit.ly/RLWBlog
Contents:
Introduction: Kris Aric Knisely & Eric Louis Russell: Redoing Linguistic Worlds
Chapter 1. Kris Aric Knisely & Eric Louis Russell: Languagers and Genderers: A Guide to Redoing Linguistic Worlds
Chapter 2. Kris Aric Knisely: Not Another Binary: Gender Modality, Languaging, and Language Learning in French
Chapter 3. Maureen O. Gallagher, Simone Pfleger, Angineh Djavadghazaryans, Brigetta (Britt) Abel & Faye Stewart: Gender Plurality in the German-Language Classroom: Constructing Linguistic and Cultural Identities Beyond Binaries
Chapter 4. Lindsay D. Preseau, LeAnne Spino & Niko Tracksdorf: Gender Inclusivity Across the Curriculum: An Exploration of Novice and Advanced Course Content through Student Perspectives
Chapter 5. Maxen Jack-Monroe: Beyond Il or Elle and Femme or Homme: How Non-Binary Montrealers Navigate French
Chapter 6. Jennifer Kaplan: The Social Life of Non-Binary French: How Non-Binary Francophones Linguistically Navigate Institutions
Chapter 7. Sheryl Bernardo-Hinesley & Alba Arias Álvarez: Remaking Spanish Gender Binaries: Online Attitudes Towards Gender Pluralities
Chapter 8. Michael Barnes: “Estamos Pavimentando El Camino Para Futuros Hablantes Del Castellano”: Nonbinary Peninsular Spanish Language Users’ use of Gender-Neutral Language as Prefigurative Politics.
Chapter 9. Ben Papadopoulos: Identifying Gender in Gendered Languages: The Case of Spanish
Chapter 10. Eric Louis Russell: Ciro È Morto O Morta? Symbolic Power and Discursive Effablity
Kris Aric Knisely & Eric Louis Russell: Redoing and Undoing: When a Conclusion is Just the Beginning
Select Journal Articles
Knisely, K. (2024). Toward trans multilingualisms: student attitudes toward and experiences with trans linguacultures in French. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 643-655. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2024.2306414
There is increasing recognition of the imperative of gender justice in language education. Despite this momentum, reflected as it is in ongoing calls to resist cisheteronormativity and in a growing body of literature on the benefits of gender-just pedagogies, movement toward a distinctly trans approach to applied linguistics and toward trans multilingualisms remains woefully uneven and often entirely absent. One of many contributing factors is anecdotal speculation about student resistance that has persisted unchecked, particularly given limited data on student experiences with developing trans-inflected multilingualisms. To respond, this study explored the attitudinal stances taken by 59 undergraduates in a fifth-semester French course in the United States toward trans people, knowledges, and linguistic practices using a pre-course/post-course mixed-methods survey design. Results indicated that most students had no prior experience with trans linguacultures in their French-language coursework, contrasting with broad interest and readiness to learn about these topics. Although students varied in their attitudinal stances, results also demonstrated that an overall openness to, interest in, and valuing of developing their own trans multilingualisms was only enhanced by the 16-week course experience, adding to the robust body of evidence urging scholar-educators to work toward increasingly gender-just forms of language education.
Knisely, K. (2023). Gender-justice beyond inclusion: How trans knowledges and linguistic practices can and should be re-shaping language education. Modern Language Journal. 107(2), 607-623.
The impetus for trans inclusion in language classrooms and research has been amply articulated. As scholar-educators in a network of disciplines and departments where languages are taught, learned, and researched, the time for us to work towards forms of gender justice that honor, and revel in the knowledges and linguacultures of trans people has long since been here (Knisely & Paiz, 2021; Knisely & Russell, 2023a). Yet, despite this clear imperative, many of our students continue to report uneven engagement with trans ways of being, knowing, and languaging (e.g., Knisely, 2023b; Spiegelman, 2022). In this article, I explore the burgeoning research into trans ways of doing and teaching language. In conversation with this literature, I illustrate a distinctly trans approach to translanguaging and to language-as-social-verb more broadly. Through this exploration, I argue for a rethinking of what we do as language scholar-educators in conversation with trans linguacultures and in step with shifting thinking about what we do as langaugenderers (i.e., languagers and genderers) more broadly. To close, but not conclude, I ask: What will you do to work towards a world in which we all are able to participate more fully in linguacultural life, a world in which people are not excluded from enlanguaged knowability? What will you do to work towards a world in which language —and the fields from which we teach and study this social, relational act— enriches the livability of all of our lives?
Knisely, K. (2022). Gender-justice and the development of intersectional thinking: Evidence from an intermediate French course. CFC Intersections. 1(1), 147-160. https://doi.org/10.3828/cfci.2022.11
Language educators are increasingly recognizing the importance of pedagogies that engage with students as whole persons, particularly from a gender-just and intersectional paradigm. However, action on this ethical impetus is often limited by a nexus of inadequate training, materials, and research. Using data from 112 US undergraduate students of intermediate-level French, this study investigates the possible relationships among gender-just practices and the development of students’ intersectional thinking. Results suggest that gender-just pedagogies are a viable tool for increasing students’ exposure to, awareness of, and ability to engage in thinking about intersections and intersectionality.
Les professeurs de langue se rendent de plus en plus compte de l’importance d’approches pédagogiques qui envisagent les étudiants comme des personnes entières, en particulier à l’aune d’une approche intersectionnelle et juste pour les personnes de tout genre. Cependant, l’insuffisance de formation, de matériel et de recherche à cet égard limite les initiatives prises dans le sillage de cet élan éthique. D’après des données collectées auprès de 112 étudiants de français niveau intermédiaire de premier cycle aux États-Unis, cette étude considère les liens possibles entre les pratiques de justice de genre et le développement de compétences intersectionnelles chez les étudiants. Les principales contestations portent sur le fait que les pédagogies axées sur la justice de genre sont un outil efficace pour sensibiliser les étudiants à l’intersectionnalité et pour cultiver leur capacité de réfléchir aux intersections et à l’intersectionnalité.
Knisely, K. (2022) Gender-just language teaching and linguistic competence development. Foreign Language Annals, 55(3), 644-667. https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.12641
Within a broad turn toward identity-focused pedagogies, educators are increasingly recognizing the critical impetus to engage with gender in expansive and inclusive ways. However, challenges persist. Often inadequate supports are exacerbated by a lack of empirical investigations into whether and how gender-just language teaching may contribute to student learning. Thus, very little is known about how this ethical imperative interfaces with linguistic outcomes. To respond, this study analyzed linguistic accuracy and complexity in assignment data from 112 US undergraduate students enrolled in one of three iterations of an intermediate French course, which varied in whether and when gender-just pedagogies were introduced. Results indicated that gender-just language pedagogies contribute to significantly lower overall mean error rates but do not have a statistically significant relationship with mean length of utterance. Implications are discussed, including the clear benefit of an early-and-often approach to gender justice in the language classroom.
Also available: Knisely, K. (2022). More ethical, more accurate: Trans knowledges and student language learning. OASIS Summary of Knisely (2022). Gender-just language teaching and linguistic competence development. Foreign Language Annals. 55(3). 644-667. https://oasis-database.org/concern/summaries/6682x464r?locale=en
An introduction to Knisely, K. (2022) Gender-just language teaching and linguistic competence development. Foreign Language Annals, 1-24. from the ACTFL Book Club event held on 25 August 2022.
Knisely, K. and Paiz, J.M. (2021) Bringing Trans, Non-binary, and Queer Understandings to Bear in Language Education. Critical Multilingualism Studies. 9(1), 23-45.
Language education represents a site for identity (re)construction, mediated through language acquisition and use (Atkinson, 2011). As students develop linguistic abilities, they also develop a multilingual sense of self. Pedagogies that engage with students as whole persons inherently encourage identity-focused reflection and may facilitate more ethical teaching (Norton, 2013; Moore, 2016). Increasingly, literature considers sexual diversity’s role in language curricula, textbooks, research, and pedagogy (Nelson, 2009; Paiz, 2018; Saunston, 2017). However, herein, there is a marked focus on lesbian and gay considerations—perpetuating trans, non-binary, gender-non conforming (TGNC), bisexual, and queer invisibility (Knisely, 2020a, 2021a; Paiz, 2020). This paper addresses how TGNC lives and concerns can interface with the process of language education, highlighting its importance for applied linguistics, language teachers, and learners. Ultimately, the authors present a toolkit for integrating TGNC understandings of the world into language-learning contexts, outlining potential advantages and challenges as they relate to creating more critical and equitable pedagogies.
Knisely, K. (2020). Le français non-binaire: linguistic forms used by non-binary speakers of French. Foreign Language Annals. 53(4), 850-876. doi: 10.1111/flan.12500.
In response to shifting sociocultural constructions of gender and the emerging visibility of non‐binary subject positions, grammatically binary linguistic systems, such as French, are being challenged, subverted, and adapted. This paper describes and analyzes formal, structural, and ideological aspects of how contemporary French speakers are confronting and innovating beyond the gender binary, highlighting the lack of scholarly attention and increase in public salience afforded to these issues. Survey data from 174 adult speakers of French are used to outline the forms used by non‐binary Francophones, the degree of form variance, and the self‐reported comprehensibility ratings of these forms. The findings establish consistent trends in the non‐binary language forms used and their comprehensibility, while highlighting the importance of variance for individual agency in non‐binary Francophone communities. These findings are foundational to a consideration of the of teaching non‐binary forms in foreign language classrooms and curricula for inclusivity and competence development.
Also available: Knisely, K. (2020). “How do you say the singular they in French?”: How non-binary people are adapting the French language. OASIS Summary of Knisely (2020). Le français non-binaire: linguistic forms used by non-binary speakers of French. Foreign Language Annals. 53(4). 1-27. doi: 10.1111/flan.12500.
Knisely, K. (2020). Subverting the culturally unreadable: Understanding the self-positioning of non-binary speakers of French. The French Review. 94(2), 149-168.
In response to evolving sociocultural constructions of gender and increasing visibility of non-binary subject positions, speakers of French are subverting and adapting this grammatically binary language. However, existing studies have overarchingly remained detached from the ways that non-binary Francophones experience their own cultural positioning. The present study bridges this linguistic and cultural divide by investigating the themes and strategies used by 71 non-binary Francophones in discussing their own positionalities. Centering the voices of non-binary Francophones creates space for a deeper understanding of the broader social movements for the recognition of non-binary lives in Francophone contexts such as Canada and France.
Also available: Knisely, K. (2020). Read this realness: How non-binary people are taking up and subverting cultural and linguistic spaces in French. OASIS Summary of Knisely (2020). Subverting the culturally unreadable: Understanding the self-positioning of non-binary speakers of French. The French Review. 94(2). 149-168.
Knisely, K. (2018). Intégration des réseaux sociaux dans les cours de langue : justifications et mises en garde. [Integrating social networks into language courses: justifications and cautions.] The French Review. 92(1), 96-111.
Cet article décrit les avantages et les inconvénients potentiels de l’intégration pédagogique de Facebook dans les cours universitaires de langues étrangères, s’appuyant sur deux études de cas, ainsi que sur un examen de la recherche existante. Les aspects pédagogiques et éthiques doivent être soigneusement traités, mais l’incorporation stratégique des réseaux sociaux offre de multiples avantages tels qu’une augmentation des heures de contact avec la langue-cible, plus d’authenticité, une hausse de crédibilité du professeur, plus de motivation chez les étudiants, un soutien important de l’autonomie dans l’apprentissage, plus de collaboration, et la création d’une communauté.
This article outlines the potential benefits and challenges associated with using Facebook in second language courses at the university level, based on two case studies as well as on an examination of the existing literature. Ethical and pedagogical challenges must be carefully treated, however, the strategic incorporation of social media platforms offers multiple advantages such as an increase in language contact hours, increased authenticity, increased credibility of the professor, increased motivation among students, the fostering of independent learning, increased collaboration, and an increased sense of belongingness to the language and learning communities.
Knisely, K. and Wind, S. (2017). Desarrollando un cuestionario exploratorio de la sensación de pertenencia relacionado al aprendizaje de idiomas utilizando la teoría de medición educacional de Rasch [Developing a Survey to Explore Sense of Belongingness related to Language Learning Using Rasch Measurement Theory]. Pensamiento Educativo. 54(2), 1-20. doi: 10.7764/PEL.54.2.2017.2
El presente estudio exploró las propiedades psicométricas de una encuesta diseñada para medir la construcción de pertenencia basada en la administración piloto de un nuevo instrumento. Esta exploración del instrumento utilizó la teoría de medición de Rasch para determinar el grado de usabilidad del instrumento para estudiar el constructo mencionado dentro del contexto de aprendizaje y enseñanza del lenguaje, como también para informar de las revisiones antes de su uso en futuras investigaciones. Los datos del piloto para la nueva encuesta fueron reunidos de 249 estudiantes de pregrado inscritos en cuatro universidades del Sudeste de Estados Unidos y mostraron un buen ajuste al modelo de Rasch. En general, los resultados sugieren que los estudiantes reportan percepciones complejas de su propia pertenencia, indicando que no se sienten aislados ni poseen una comunidad cercana en su aprendizaje del idioma francés. Los estudiantes mostraron, en general, una falta de orgullo o vergüenza en patrones de información complejos. Las implicancias de la teoría, investigación y práctica sugieren una mayor exploración de la construcción de pertenencia en diversos aspectos, para el cultivo activo de la comunidad como para el trabajo de promoción.
This study explored the psychometric properties of a survey designed to measure the construct of belongingness based on a pilot administration of a new instrument. This exploration used Rasch measurement theory to determine the degree to which the instrument could be used to examine this construct within the context of language learning and instruction, and to inform revisions to the instrument prior to its use in future research. Pilot data for the new survey were collected from 249 undergraduate students enrolled at four universities in the Southeastern United States and displayed overall good fit to the Rasch model. Overall, the results suggested that the students reported complex perceptions of their own belonging, indicating neither isolation nor a close community in learning French. Students reported a general lack of pride or shame with complex disclosure patterns. Implications for theory, research, and practice suggest a need for further exploration of the various aspects of sense of belongingness, for the active cultivation of community, as well as for advocacy work.
Knisely, K. (2017). Exploring the role of culture in the formation of French language ideologies among US post-secondary students. Contemporary French Civilization. 42(2), 189-210. doi: 10.3828/cfc.2017.11
At present, there appears to be general disinterest in learning modern foreign languages in the US, which is particularly marked in French. However, in a time of ever-increasing globalization, there is a need for the development of diverse linguistic skills. Contributing to this disinterest are language ideologies that situate the learning of certain languages, including French, as inappropriate for many. Attitudes regarding speakers of French and Francophone cultures are an integral component of these language ideologies. Bringing together applied linguistics and French cultural studies, this study was conducted at a US university and considers language ideologies regarding French that may be contributing to such disinterest in learning French as a second language. The sample included forty-seven undergraduates. Key findings include that young adults hold and are able to readily articulate their language attitudes, wherein the French language was consistently gendered as feminine. Implications include support for pedagogical strategies such as presenting a variety of target language speaker models as well as for integrating culture throughout the program of language study.
Knisely, K. (2016). Language Learning and the Gendered Self: The Case of French and Masculinity in a US Context. Gender and Language. 10(2), 216-239. doi: 10.1558/genl.v10i2.19810
In a time of ever-increasing globalisation, the development of diverse linguistic skills has been growing in importance despite a trend of reduced language learning, which is particularly marked in Anglophone countries. Although the need for international interaction is not gender-specific, a growing body of literature has identified gender-related differences in language education. Existing research has demonstrated that different target languages have been gendered by students in different ways. Extending the existing literature, focused primarily on adolescents, a survey was administered to 294 students at four universities in the southeastern US to explore the degree to which young adults perceive languages as gendered and to which taking French is perceived as gender-norm violating. Findings suggest that although there are some similarities in terms of the gendering of languages and language study among adolescent and young adult learners, differences exists in the nature of this gendering.
Knisely, K. and Wind, S. (2015). Gendered language attitudes: Exploring language as a gendered construct using Rasch measurement theory. Journal of Applied Measurement. 16(1), 95-112.
Gendered language attitudes (GLAs) are gender-based perceptions of language varieties based on connections between gender-related and linguistic characteristics of individuals, including the perception of language varieties as possessing degrees of masculinity and femininity. This study combines substantive theory about language learning and gender with a model based on Rasch measurement theory to explore the psychometric properties of a new measure of GLAs. Findings suggest that GLAs is a unidimensional construct and that the items used can be used to describe differences among students in terms of the strength of their GLAs. Implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed. Special emphasis is given to the teaching and learning of languages.
Chapters in Edited Volumes
Knisely, K. (2025). El lenguaje trans también es buen lenguaje: Sobre el valor de las culturas trans del lenguaje en la educación [Trans language is good language too: Understanding the value of trans cultures of language in education.] In Á. López (Ed.) Lengua mutante: Reflexiones sobre lenguaje inclusive [Mutant Language: Reflections on Inclusive Language]. (pp. 263-292). Pie de Página.
Available in Spanish and English.
Disponible en español e inglés.
ISBN: 978-84-129947-9-7
Abstract: People have strong ideas about how we can or should do language, do gender, and do them together. When someone’s ways of doing language and gender challenge these restrictive notions, people tend to have intensely negative if not outright violent reactions. For those of us who flout expectations for doing gender and language together (whether in reference to ourselves or to the trans and nonbinary people in our lives), it often seems as though everyone –from a random stranger on the internet, to cashier at the grocery store, to the teachers at school, to so-called language authorities (like the Real Academia Española or the Académie Française)– wants to tell us that we can’t do language the way that we do, that our languaging is wrong, or even that we are ruining language. This tendency to think of some ways of doing language as right and other ways of doing language as wrong is particularly common in educational contexts and in the popular discourses (or day-to-day conversations) about education. But, can our ways of doing language really be wrong, can we really ruin language, and is a singular model of ‘good’ language actually helpful or even possible in education? In this chapter we will consider what trans cultures of language teach us about the possibilities that exist for doing language and what the research says about the impacts of including trans cultures of language in our educational environments. Spoiler alert: Through this exploration of what we know about trans cultures of language and about gender-just language education, we’ll come to understand that no one’s languaging is wrong, that language cannot be harmed, and that bringing trans cultures of language into education offers a wide-range of benefits to everyone.
Resumen: La gente tiene ideas muy firmes sobre cómo podemos o debemos hacer lenguaje, hacer género y hacerlos juntos. Cuando desafiamos esas nociones restrictivas, esa misma gente puede tener reacciones intensamente negativas, cuando no directamente violentas. Cuando no nos ajustamos a las expectativas sociales sobre cómo debemos combinar el género y el lenguaje (ya sea en referencia a nosotres mismes o a les demás), a menudo parece que todo el mundo —desde mindundis en Internet hasta cajeres en el súper, pasando por profesoris de instituto y por las supuestas autoridades lingüísticas (como la Real Academia Española o la Académie française)— quiere decirnos que no podemos hacer lenguaje como lo hacemos, que estamos lenguando mal, o incluso que estamos arruinando la lengua (véanse, por ejemplo, Conrod, 2024; Moore, Crowley y Knisely, próximamente; Tudisco, 2021). El lenguaje y el género se convierten en herramientas de opresión y control. Esta tendencia a pensar en algunas formas de hacer lenguaje como correctas y otras como incorrectas es particularmente común en contextos educativos y en discursos populares (o conversaciones del día a día) sobre educación (considérense, por ejemplo, Díaz, Mejía y Villamizar, 2022; Knisely, 2025d; López, 2023). Pero ¿pueden ser realmente erróneas nuestras formas de hacer lenguaje? ¿Podemos realmente arruinar la lengua? ¿Es el modelo de una lengua «buena» y única realmente útil —o siquiera posible— en la educación? En este capítulo tomamos en cuenta lo que nos enseñan las culturas trans del lenguaje sobre las posibilidades que existen para hacer lenguaje y lo que dice la investigación sobre las repercusiones de incluir culturas trans del lenguaje en nuestros entornos educativos. Ojo, spoiler: A través de esta exploración de lo que sabemos sobre las culturas trans del lenguaje y sobre la educación lingüística con justicia de género, llegaremos a comprender que ni nadie lengua mal ni se puede dañar el lenguaje, y que incorporar las culturas trans del lenguaje en la educación ofrece una amplia gama de beneficios para todes.
Knisely, K. (Forthcoming Fall 2025). Gender-Just Pedagogies. In Fernández, J. & Warner, C. (Eds). Contemporary Topics in Applied Linguistics for Language Educators.
Abstract: This chapter offers an introduction to trans cultures of language as they relate to language teaching and learning. Specifically, it introduces the concept of gender-just language pedagogies by inviting readers to consider gender and language as connected actions that are fundamentally social and relational. At the beginning of this chapter, readers are presented with a common statement about the role of gender in language education and are guided through analyzing the interconnected misunderstandings that this statement represents. Considerations include: Why and how does gender matter in language education? How does who we are influence the ways that we do language with one another? Why and how is gender justice about more than inclusion alone? In what ways do gender-just pedagogies represent a different approach? After being presented with the core aims and strategies of gender-just pedagogies, readers are provided with a series of exercises to practice applying several of these pedagogical principles. These exercises focus on French language data and guide the reader first through an analysis of forms and structures and then through their own creative language production. In addition to languaging practice, readers are invited to consider how such exercises might be adapted by educators for use with their specific students and in their specific contexts. Each exercise is followed by a debrief. Suggestions for further reading are also provided.
Sommaire: Ce chapitre offre une introduction aux cultures linguistiques trans dans le cadre de l’enseignement et l’apprentissage des langues. Plus précisément, ceci introduit le concept des pédagogies de justice de genre à travers la présentation du genre et du langage en tant qu’actions fondamentalement sociales et relationnelles. Le chapitre s’ouvre avec une déclaration que l’on rencontre souvent sur le rôle du genre dans l’apprentissage des langues. Les lecteur·ice·s sont guidé·e·s dans l’analyse de cette déclaration et les mécompréhensions interconnectées qu’elle représente. Les questions suivantes y sont notamment évoquées : Comment et pourquoi est le genre important dans l’enseignement des langues ? Comment est-ce que son identité influence sa façon d’aborder les interactions linguistiques ? La justice de genre comprend plus qu’un engagement à l’inclusion. Qu’est-ce que cela veut dire et pourquoi est-ce le cas ? Comment est-ce que les pédagogies de justice de genre représentent-elles une approche différente ? Après la présentation des objectifs et des stratégies clés des pédagogies de justice de genre, une série d’exercices est fourni aux lecteur·ice·s afin de permettre la mise en pratique de ces principes pédagogiques. Ces exercices se basent sur des données linguistiques en français. Le premier guide le·a·æ lecteur·ice dans l’analyse des formes et structures linguistiques, puis, le deuxième invite la création de ses propres énoncés. En plus de ce travail linguistique, les questions posées aux lecteur·ice·s traitent la considération de leur utilisation par des éducateur·ice·s avec leurs étudiants dans leurs contextes spécifiques. Chaque exercice est suivi par un débrief (c.-à-d. une discussion structurée des réponses possibles et leurs implications). Ce chapitre se termine avec des suggestions de lectures complémentaires.
Knisely, K. (2025). Teaching toward gender justice: considerations in materials design, selection, and use. In Russell, V., Murphy-Judy, K., Troyan, F. J., Moeller, A. J., & Hines-Gaither, K., (Eds). The Handbook of Research on World Language Instruction. (pp. 387-399). Routledge.
Language educators and organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of expansive approaches to gender. Research has demonstrated that this importance is not only one of inclusion but also one that stems from the very goals and objectives of language education: Gender-just language pedagogies support the development of a range of contemporary critical literacies. Despite this, educators are often challenged by insufficient training in these pedagogies and by materials that fail to engage in meaningful ways with trans knowledges and language practices. This chapter offers a review of gender-just language pedagogies, including their existing articulations and research into their affordances and constraints, as a foundation for addressing one of the hereto major hindrances to their uptake: the overwhelming cisheteronormativity of existing, mass-market materials. That is, the presentation of particular forms of cisgender heterosexuality as the only valued, valid, or possible ways of doing gender and sexuality. Readers are guided in navigating a constellation of considerations in materials design, selection, and use through concrete examples, activities, and questions for further reflection.
Knisely, K. (2025). Doing language and gender in the classroom: Teaching toward justice. In Fäcke, Christiane, Gao, Xuesong (Andy), and Garrett-Rucks, Paula (Eds.) The Handbook of Intercultural and Plurilingual Language Learning (pp. 483-494). Blackwell-Wiley.
Gender, language, and education are social and relational acts; they are things that we do and do together and through this social doing they are constantly remade. Conversations about language education often recognize the role of social languaging collectives in the ways that we continuously relearn to do language. Such recognition has historically extended less frequently, however, to the ways that gender and its modalities are enmeshed with language learning. Where language research, training, and praxis have begun to attend to gender and its modalities, myriad misunderstandings often persist. These misunderstandings are regularly steeped in a combination of ideas about language (e.g., cislingualism or (cis)normative conceptions of language, prescriptivism, anthropomorphization), gender (e.g., binarism), education (e.g., apoliticization), power (e.g., language authorities), and legibility (e.g., cislation or the translating of seemingly illegible genders for cisgender recognition, type-marking). In keeping, this chapter reflects on the importance of expansive, equitable, and just approaches to gender in sites of language education and upon the growing body of literature related to gender-just language pedagogies, particularly those articulated through the frame of trans-affirming queer inquiry-based pedagogies (TAQIBPs). Considerations include the relationship of gender justice to student learning and to the broader discipline. In so doing, this chapter offers readers a lens for thinking about the complex intersections of gender and language in the context of language education and language education research.
Knisely, K. (2023). Teaching trans: The Impetus for trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming inclusivity in L2 classrooms. In K. Davidson, S. Johnson, & L. Randolph (Eds.) How We Take Action: Social Justice in PK-16 Language Classrooms. Information Age.
Who we are deeply influences how we approach the processes of language teaching and learning. Recognizing this fact, scholar-educators are increasingly attending to the importance of identity, not only for justice and equity, but also for competence development. This includes considering how language education interfaces with queerness (Cahnmann-Taylor & Coda, 2018; Nelson, 2009; Paiz, 2018; Rhodes & Coda, 2017; Saunston, 2018). However, the marginalization of trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming (TGNC) people has persisted. TGNC-focused scholarship on language education remains in its most nascent stages (Knisely & Paiz, forthcoming). This lack of attention to gender diversity in the curriculum, textbooks, research, and pedagogy of language classrooms, however, is not representative of the full diversity of the lives, experiences, and concerns of students today nor does it serve many of our goals as language educators. Failing to engage with trans knowledges undermines both social justice pedagogies and calls for intercultural competence development. In following, this chapter argues for the place of TGNC topics in language education and serves as a call to action for scholar-educators. This chapter thus both summarizes existing findings and guides readers through a series of questions intended to provide a framework for TGNC-inclusion via self-reflective practice.
Knisely, K. (2022) Teaching trans knowledges: Situating expansive possibilities in an intermediate French course. In S. Bouamer & L. Bourdeau (Eds.) Diversity and Decolonization in French Studies: New Approaches to Teaching. Palgrave Macmillan. 165-180. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-95357-7_11
As a part of a long historical arc, contemporary language educators are increasingly recognizing the critical impetus to engage with gender in expansive ways for justice, equity, and intercultural, symbolic, and linguistic competence development. Despite a proliferation of general educational resources, a paucity of training and materials for French language educators persists. This chapter builds upon broad, starter-kit approaches (e.g., Knisely, 2022, Starter Kit, forthcoming 2022, Teaching Trans; Knisely & Paiz, 2021) to address the continued challenges that educators experience in reimagining their French language classrooms as sites for expansive linguistic, pedagogical, and cultural possibilities and in applying trans knowledges to the everyday. The primary objective of this work is to support educators in building and maintaining curricula, classrooms, and pedagogies that engage with the lives of trans Francophones and that affirm trans language learners. Specifically, this chapter walks readers through one possible way of making said goals manifest in an intermediate-level conversation and pronunciation course. After some brief contextualization, educators are guided in-sequence through a series of concrete pedagogical choices that span the course of one semester, beginning with the syllabus and continuing on through myriad moments where gender is or can be made relevant to the process of teaching, learning, and using French.
Knisely, K. (2022). A Starter Kit for Rethinking TGNC Representation and Inclusion in French L2 Classrooms. In E. N. Meyer & E. Hoft-March (Eds.) Teaching Diversity and Inclusion: Examples from a French-Speaking Classroom. Routledge. 22-33.
In language teaching, just as in the broader world, we cannot separate language from the people using, doing, and continually (re)shaping the language. In this way, identity is an inherent part of language learning and use. Mounting professional calls for diversity and inclusion (e.g., ACTFL) echo, at least in part, this assertion. To respond, educators can and should explicitly attend to identity (re)construction in their pedagogical approach. As is the focus of this chapter, this creates space for educational stakeholders to recognize and contend with the profound importance of critical and respectful engagement with gender and sexuality in contemporary society. As such, this chapter aims to provide a jumping-off point for educators new to queer pedagogies, broadly, and to French Queer Applied Linguistics (ALx) specifically. My ultimate goals are to provide sources for further reading alongside initial insight into concrete ways that materials, pedagogical strategies, and the broader curriculum can be adapted to provide equitable opportunities for trans language learners, affirm trans lives, and increase respectful engagement with trans people.
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Knisely, K. (2021). L/G/B and T: Queer Excisions, Entailments, and Intersections. In J. Paiz & J. Coda (Eds.) Intersectional Perspectives on LGBTQ+ Issues in Language Teaching and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan. 153-182. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76779-2_6
Queer applied linguistics (ALx) has begun to emerge as a veritable subfield, asking what it means to be LGBTQ+ for the teaching, learning, and using of languages. However, narratives about LGBTQ+ lives and concerns have not historically attended equally to all segments of the acronym. Specifically, ALx has tended to be dominated by considerations of sexuality, often excising, effacing, or treating trans people as a monolith. This simultaneous uniting of articulations of queerness (under LGBTQ+) and the excision of gender from sexuality is due, in part, to tenuous historical alliances that have existed among LGB and trans communities. In fact, the LGBTQ+ acronym is both regularly leveraged as a symbolically unifying force and frequently lauded as an inclusionary move away from cisgender, male homonormativity. However true, LGBTQ+ under-attends to the heterogeneity of the group of individuals it is used to signify and itself presents myriad complexities. Among such complexities are the ways in which the ability to occupy multiple segments of the LGBTQ+ acronym is rarely, if ever, explicitly considered in discussions of queering language education. As a field, we rarely ask what it means to be a language teacher or learner who is gay and trans, lesbian and trans, queer and trans, or any such intersections. Nor have we tended to interrogate the possible incoherence of categories of sexuality that are predicated on binary conceptions of gender. This lack of intersectional awareness leaves blind spots in how we think about treating both the representation and inclusion of queerness in language classrooms. As such, this chapter explores both what is lost when gender and sexuality are considered separately from one another and what is risked when the LGBTQ+ acronym is treated holistically, drawing on the idea of third spaces, in order to put forth new possible approaches to conceptualizing and engaging in queering language teaching and learning.