New and Old Forms of Prejudices Among Teachers: An Explorative Study

Abstract

This research aims to investigate, in a group of teachers, the link between ethnic prejudice and homophobic attitudes toward issues concerning the use of media tools that support gay and lesbian people. To achieve this purpose, teachers (155 women and 32 males) were given self-report questionnaires: the latent and manifest prejudice scale, and a scale created specifically to assess the various forms of feelings and attitudes toward topics concern lesbian and gay people. The path model suggests how latent prejudice is strictly connected to negative morality and anger toward LG topics, as well as negatively connected to positive attitudes about the exposure of boys and girls to LG topics. The manifest prejudice, however, is negatively connected only to the positive attitudes about the exposure of children to LG topics.

Keywords:

• Ethnic prejudice
• equational structure modeling
• homophobia
• teacher

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or research committee of Academy of Social and Forensic Psychology (Rome), and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.