Browsing by Subject "ATLG"

Teacher's own attitudes and behavior has a great impact on children's development of attitudes and behavior. They take part on the growth of the children's identity. This said, it is good to be acknowledged on the prevalent attitudinal atmosphere and also to acknowledge one's own attitudes. In this study the main task was to explore finnish teacher student's attitudes towards sexual minorities. Addition to that the possible effects of background factors were studied. In Finland there has not been enough academic research on the subject, even though the issue is current and significant. The study was conducted in November 2017. Altogether 180 teacher students from three different universities participated in the study. The questionnaire used in the study based on Herek's ATLG-scale (Attitudes toward lesbian and gay men) and it was altered to fit better in the Finnish context. The questionnaire included 22 claims on both gay men and lesbians. The results were analyzed by using IBM SPSS Statistic 22 –program. The sum of the variables was calculated and its characteristics were examined to examine the attitudes. The connection of the background factors were analyzed by t-tests and variance analyses. Teachers' attitudes were mainly positive although there was slight variation in some of the claims. Especially the claims about the current subjects and personal opinions caused some alteration in the answers. Despite the variation, the attitudes were surprisingly positive. The background factors had some effect on the attitudes. For example, if the student considered him- or herself as religious affected the attitudes slightly. Other factors that affected were respondents own sexual orientation and the fact if he or she knew someone who considered him- or herself as a gay or lesbian. Other factors did not have any significant effect on the attitudes in this study and sample. These results from the study are not to be generalized to concern all the teachers in Finland, only to get some idea about the attitudes. There are several possibilities to continue this study. Adding more participants to the sample or broadening the study are good ways to improve the generalization of the result. Studying how teachers' attitudes impact on children's attitudes would be too an interesting study.