FAMILY VALUES AS A FOUNDATION FOR GENDER EQUALITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

It is not secret that family values play a crucial role in shaping individuals’ perceptions of gender roles, social behavior, and communication patterns, thereby influencing the development of gender equality culture within a particular community. This article highlights family values as a rudimentary socio-cultural mechanism through which gender norms are transmitted and internalized, with particular emphasis on their impact on intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in English language education. Relying on sociocultural concepts and intercultural communication models, the study argues that the family ultimately constitutes the earliest and most influential environment for gender socialization, directly affecting each individuals’ attitudes toward equality, authority, and interaction across cultures differing values and beliefs from one another.