Changing attitudes of high school students in Israel toward homosexuality

ABSTRACT

Hoshen, the Hebrew acronym for “Education & Change”, is a nonprofit, nationwide education and information center for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in Israel. The main educational method Hoshen uses is the personal story told by volunteers. The present study aimed to examine whether this activity, carried out in Israeli high schools, resulted in a change in participants' attitudes. Questionnaires measuring Attitudes Towards Homosexuality were administered to 272 students in 3 high schools before and after the activity. Results showed an improvement in the general Attitudes Towards Homosexuality scale, and in all three subscales of the attitudes towards homosexuality construct measured in this study: emotional, cognitive and behavioral. A very significant impact was observed on the emotional subscale. Young men showed a sharper rise in acceptance of homosexuality than did women. Religiosity, form of residence (urban vs. nonurban), and previous acquaintance with LGBT people showed to also have an effect on attitudes. Results of this study indicate that the personal story method is effective in changing attitudes toward homosexuality. This change might help create a safer environment for LGBT teens. Social change organizations may be able to use this method to promote tolerance towards other minorities as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• attitudes
• bullying
• educational programs
• homophobia
• Israel
• school climate

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Michal Leshem from Ben-Gurion University for initiating the project, Irit Zviely-Efrat and Avishai Vanunu from Hoshen for their help in the overall management of the project, and all Hoshen's volunteers who took part in the administration of the questionnaires in the classrooms. The authors also thank GLSEN for its support in enabling them to present the study and for the useful comments and reviews along the way to publication.

Notes on contributors

Uri Eick received his MSc in statistics from The Technion (Israel Institute for Technology), and his MA in Social Work from The University of Haifa. For more than a decade, he has been an activist, mainly in the fields of feminism, human rights, and the LGBTQ community.

Tanya Rubinstein received her BSc in Neuroscience from Tel Aviv University. She is a radical activist in various fields, including LGBTQ rights, feminism, animal rights, and peace activism in Israel/Palestine.

Shai Hertz, a computer scientist and a musician, received his MSc in computer science from Tel Aviv University. He has been a volunteer in Hoshen since 2007, and has been a member of its research team and its story building team.

Aylon Slater received his MA in social-organizational psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. He is an Adjunct Professor at Tel Aviv University's Group Facilitation Program, and has been a volunteer in Hoshen since 2003.