Promoting Gender-Inclusive Language in Italian Education

Sara Galli holds master’s degrees in Modern Philology and in Teaching Italian to Foreigners from the Università degli Studi di Genova, and earned her Ph.D. in Italian Studies from the University of Toronto in 2024 with a dissertation on Dante’s didactic project.

In 2019, together with her colleague Mohammad Javad Jamali, Dr. Galli began researching gender bias in Italian and other Romance languages. Since then, she has published in peer-reviewed journals, presented her work internationally, and led workshops on inclusive language.

Now teaching at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, she promotes inclusive communication across departments and investigates how Italian encodes gender inequality—for instance, through the use or avoidance of feminine professional titles. Her project also supports K–12 educators by creating a database of inclusive teaching materials and highlighting the gap between teachers’ goals and the linguistic tools available to them.

To expand the conversation beyond academia, she co-founded Teachers for Inclusive Pedagogy (T.I.P.) on Instagram, a platform encouraging dialogue and collaboration on inclusive practices in Italian classrooms.

Dr. Galli’s work bridges research and real-world teaching, advancing gender equity and cultural change through language.