Examination of Students’ Attitudes Toward Homosexual Athletes—A Case Study of Sports Sciences Faculty of Uludağ University

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine Physical Education and Sport Department students' attitudes toward homosexual athletes. This study is the first study investigating the homophobia of physical education students who are expected to play a role in the development of sports and its basic education. The sample of the study is 102 students. The participant students were aged between 18-28 years old and the mean age was 21.67. To collect data, the Turkish version of the "Homophobia in Sports Scale" was used. With the aim of determining if there was a difference between the male and the female students' attitudes, chi-square goodness-of-fit-test and Mann-Whitney U test were employed. The differences were tested at the significance level of 0.05. Half of the female participants and 40% of the male participants stated that there would be no change in their thoughts about a "male" athlete revealing that he was a gay; moreover, 48.93% of the female participants and 43.63% of the male participants stated that there would be no change in their thoughts about a "female" athlete revealing that she was a lesbian. In relation to the question "If an athlete revealed his sexual preference, how would this confession change thoughts of fans of other sports branches?" 68.08% of the female participants and 69.09% of the male participants stated that their thoughts would change negatively. When all the participants were taken into account, it was observed that 5.88% of those who stated that thoughts of others would change positively. The indifference states of the participants were not different. Although the male and the female physical education student teachers held positive opinions of homosexual athletes within the scope of the Homophobia in Sports Scale, they had some negative opinions in some parameters. It will be useful to implement teacher training programs to develop attitudes and behaviors against discrimination in the society. Moreover, works to increase tolerance toward different lifestyles in the society will help to develop positive attitude toward homosexuality.