Villamayor Delgado, Enedina (2026) How does first language, gender, and migrant background influence perceptions of political legitimacy in women and migrants in the Netherlands? Bachelor thesis, Global Responsibility & Leadership (GRL).
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Abstract
This paper studied how first language, gender, and migrant background influence perceptions of political legitimacy in the Netherlands. Through the use of sociolinguistic theories, linguistic capital and intersectionality, the research focused on understanding whether speakers' political legitimacy is evaluated differently based on their language variation. Existing literature has shown that women, migrants and individuals associated with non-dominant language variations are often evaluated more negatively in political and social contexts. However, limited research has investigated how these forms of discrimination interact, particularly within the Dutch context. This study conducted a quantitative experiment in which participants evaluated spoken and written political stimuli associated with different genders and migrant backgrounds. The study included Dutch, Norwegian and Moroccan speakers from both genders (men and women), and also looked at the differences between written and spoken stimuli in order to study the influence of accent variation. The stimuli was manipulated through names, voices and accent variation, while maintaining content-neutral political information across all questions. Despite the limited sample size, the findings suggested some descriptive patterns. Speakers associated with Moroccan/migrant backgrounds, particularly Moroccan women, consistently received the lowest ratings of political legitimacy in comparison to Dutch and Norwegian speakers. In addition, spoken stimuli were evaluated more negatively than written stimuli, suggesting that accents may be influential in shaping political evaluations. The findings also suggested the importance of intersectionality, as descriptive patterns indicated that gender and accent may interact in influencing political legitimacy perceptions. Lastly, this study contributes to the growing literature on linguistic discrimination by indicating how accents and social identity influence perceptions of political legitimacy in the Netherlands. It also suggested the importance of recognizing subtler forms of discrimination, as they have the influence to affect who is considered a legitimate actor in contemporary Dutch political contexts.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Name supervisor: | Verkhodanova, V. |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Jun 2026 11:49 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jun 2026 11:49 |
| URI: | https://campus-fryslan.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/822 |
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