The Attitudes of Prospective Teachers towards Homosexuality: A Case Study in Konya

Abstract

Sexuality has played a natural and significant role in human life throughout history and the interpretations of the values related with sexuality have varied in time and place (Pınar, Pınar, Doğan, Karahan, Algier, at all, 2009). Homosexuality is also interpreted in various ways. In modern Turkey, homosexuals are among the discriminated and marginalised groups (Gelbal, & Duyan, 2006; Oksal, 2008)This study tried to determine the attitudes of prospective teachers towards homosexuality. The aim of the study is to investigate whether the attitudes of the participants vary according to gender, age and domains. The study group consists of 488 students who were studying at Ahmet Kelesoglu Education Faculty, Necmettin Erbakan University, in Konya, Turkey in the academic year 2011-2012. The number of female participants was 319 and the number of males was 169. The age of participants ranged from 19 to 22. The Attitudes towards Lesbians and Gay Men Scale (ATLG) and Personal Information Form were used as data gathering instruments.As regards the studies into gender variable, the males have been found to have more negative attitudes than females.As for the findings related to the age variable, the 21-22 year old participants were found to have more positive attitude towards homosexuals than other age groups. The findings about the domain of the participants showed that the students with equal- weighted had more positive results towards homosexuality