Examining attitudes towards homosexuality among young, athletic BME men in the UK

Abstract

This article examines the influence of ethnicity on sporting men's attitudes towards homosexuality. We employed Herek's Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men, Revised Version (ATLG-R) scale to collect data with British undergraduate sports students, as well as interview data with the players of an English Premier League (EPL) football academy, to show that black and minority ethnic (BME) men espouse more conservative attitudes toward homosexuality than their White counterparts. This, we theorize, is attributable to multiple factors, such as socialization into a fundamentalist version of Christianity by family, and the influence of immigration from countries where attitudes toward homosexuality remain more conservative in comparison to the UK. In documenting these findings, this research is consistent with other studies which document higher rates of intolerance among groups of BME men.

Correlates of Attitudes toward Sexual Minorities among Vietnamese Social Work Practitioners

“…The scale has been validated with English-speaking samples [16,[27][28][29] and translated versions of the scale have been tested for validity with a number of non-English-speaking samples, including Asian populations [24,30,31] and even Asian samples with social work backgrounds [32]. The scale is in current use in a wide range of fields including sexuality research [33], environmental research and public health [34], psychology [35], homosexuality studies [36], pedagogy [37], psychiatric care in nursing [38], and sports [39]. The ATLG consists of 20 different statements, 10 about gay men (Attitude Toward Gay Men-ATG subscale) and 10 about lesbian women (Attitude Toward Lesbians-ATL subscale) to which respondents indicate their levels of agreement or disagreement (Herek, 1994).…”

Sport, Masculinities, and Heteronormativity

“…Outside of sport, recent research with working-class boys and men (e.g., Blanchard, McCormack & Peterson, 2015;Roberts, 2018) also documents positive attitudes toward homosexuality, as well softer and more inclusive forms of masculinity compared to older research (e.g., Nayak & Kehily, 1996). While research with non-white men in Anglo-American contexts has shown improved attitudes (e.g., Morales, 2018), other research still documents generally more conservative attitudes among these groups of men (Magrath, 2017b;Magrath, Batten, Anderson & White, 2020;Southall, Anderson, Nagel, Polite & Southall, 2011).…”

Caught in the Crossfire: LGBT+ Traveller Intersectionality in Post-Brexit Britain

“…Anti-homosexual attitudes persist notably in religious communities, it was also stated that research into other cultural experiences at the time were significantly lacking. That statement has changed in recent years and led to the uncovering of data relating to Black & Minority ethnic groups, according to the work of Magrath et al (2020), these groups are identified in the UK as holding the most conservative views, regarding sexuality, in comparison to their white British peers. Influence from church congregations appears to be a consistency in the development of these attitudes, as highlighted by Magath et al (in reference to US BME) 'The church in the UK also remains central to many BME communities as a centre for protecting traditional culture and a physical or psychological place for performing identity'.…”