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" Is the use of the possessive adjective "their" correct in the following sentence:

'A student studying for their first degree'"?

The answer to this question is both "Yes" and "No"! Strictly speaking, some people might argue that the "correct" form should be either "his" or "her", depending on the gender of the student. The use of "their" in sentences like this has come about due to a desire to avoid sexism. As it is now common usage, a descriptive grammarian would therefore say that it is "correct". However, if in doubt, here are a couple of suggestions to avoid the problem altogether:

Firstly, you could use "his or her" or "his/her", but this can make for some ugly sentences, especially if the possessive adjective is repeated more than once.

Secondly you can just change the noun to plural:

"Students studying for their first degree".

For further information, please have a look at the web sites listed below. If you do a search through the document for "possessive adjective", "their" or "sexism", you should find the relevant information quickly.

http://cmfd.univ.trieste.it//grammar.html#sexist

http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/~cbassett/j203/grammar.html