Gendered Refusals in the Palestinian Arabic Culture: Implications for Multicultural Diverse Educational Contexts

In many societies, single-sex education is embedded in a culture that maintains women subordination with possible ramifications to their language performance and role in society. This paper seeks to explain the cultural grounds for Palestinian female direct refusals in their L1 culture and the consequences for their linguistic behaviour in multicultural educational contexts. For data collection, the study employed a self-reporting survey followed by interviews with 10 Palestinian female study abroad students. Results showed that fear of gossip-mongering, reputation and family, and inter-group anxiety constricted the females' refusals pushing them to terminate communication at an earlier stage in their home educational context. However, in a western study abroad context, the students were more responsive to the culturally diverse context. They conceived their home culture as constraining their refusal performance at home, becoming more self-sovereign and their reactions were more engaging, elaborated and less direct in the foreign educational context.