Attitudes of University Students toward Lesbians and Gay Men in Turkey

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of university students in Turkey toward lesbians and gay men. Findings indicate that relatively negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men are prevalent, but attitudes toward lesbians seem to be more positive than attitudes toward gay men. Gender differences directly affect attitudes, and religiosity also has great impact on the attitudes of the students toward lesbians and gay men. An active sex life and liberal attitudes toward premarital relations correlate with more positive attitudes toward homosexual persons. Finally, the data indicate that interpersonal contact with gay men and lesbians is associated with positive attitudes toward homosexuals.

Preservice History Teachers’ Attitudes towards Identity Differences

“…Attitude scores of participants sharing Sunni Islam identity towards gender, ethnic, and religious identity differences were significantly lower than other groups. Previous research concluded that religious beliefs were effective on attitudes towards gender identity (Gelbal & Duyan, 2006;Harbaugh & Lindsey, 2015).…”

“…Sexual orientation is another factor determining attitude towards gender differences in addition to the secondary position of women. The research showed that female preservice teachers were more tolerant to sexual orientation differences than male participants (Duyan & Duyan, 2005;Gelbal & Duyan, 2006;Sakallı, 2002;Şah, 2012).…”

''Walking on eggshells to not offend people": Experiences of same-sex student couples at a South African university

“…Research, however, indicates that acceptance of same-sex relationships varies across social contexts, e.g., countries and faculties. For example, Camilleri and Ryan (2006) found that Australian social work students were accepting towards lesbians, gay men and same-sex relationships while Gelbal and Duyan (2006) found that negative attitudes towards lesbian and gay people prevailed among Turkish university students. Ellis, Kitzinger, and Wilkonson (2003) found that British psychology students mostly held positive attitudes towards lesbian and gay people, but the student sample as a whole did not support lesbian and gay human rights (Ellis, Kitzinger and Wilkonson 2003).…”

Social Contact Theories to Regulate Intergroup Relations: Intergroup, Extended, Imagined Contact

“…Örneğin, Bikmen (1999) Türkiye'de yaşayan 10 etnik gruba ilişkin tutumları araştıran çalışmasında sosyal temas arttıkça sosyal mesafenin azaldığını bulmuştur. Alandaki diğer çalışmalarda ırksal (Türk-Kürt, Güler, 2013;Yürek, 2014;Türk-Rum, Husnu ve Lajunen, 2015), mezhepsel (Sünni-Alevi, Akbaş, 2010;Bükün ve Cingöz-Ulu, 2016;Durmaz, 2015), cinsel yönelim grupları (Çırakoğlu, 2006;Gelbal ve Duyan, 2006;Sakallı ve Uğurlu, 2002), başörtülü kadınlar (Kunduz, 2009;Sever, 2014), göçmenler (Yürek, 2010) ve sığınmacılar (Karaoğlu, 2015) gibi farklı gruplar açısından da gruplar arası temasın etkisi incelenmiştir.…”

“…Örneğin, eşcinsellerle halihazırda yapılmış olan sosyal temasın (tanıdığı birinin olması) (Çırakoğlu, 2006;Gelbal ve Duyan, 2006), gelecekte yaşanabilecek olası bir temasa ilişkin olumlu tutumların bulunmasının (Gelbal ve Duyan, 2006) Gruplar arası temasın özelliklerine dair bulgulara baktığımızda; örneğin Aleviler ve Sünniler arasında temas sıklığının (Durmaz, 2015) ve temas kalitesinin (Akbaş, 2010) gruplar arası önyargıları ve iç-grup yanlılığını (Bükün ve Cingöz-Ulu, 2016) azaltan bir etkisi olduğu bulunmuştur. Temasın az olması durumunun olumsuz etkisi de yazında gösterilmektedir.…”