Kindergarten Children’s Attitudes Towards Homosexuality: The Influence of Puppet Theatre on the Topic of Diversity in a Group of Kindergarten Children

Abstract

Homophobic stigmas and the discrimination of homosexual people are still worrying in today's society. The current study seeks to investigate kindergarten children's attitudes towards homosexuality and how they are influenced by their peer-groups and authorities. It does so by means of a puppet theatre presentation including 'Kasperl' and 'Seppel' puppets as the main protagonists in a German puppet theatre. The audience consisted of six German kindergarten children aged 4-6 years, randomly selected by the kindergarten director. A participant observation has been conducted with the first researcher as the presenter of the puppet show. The results of the recorded puppet theatre showed that several intragroup processes including the social identity theory with regard to group membership could be observed within the puppet theatre. Groups have been formed and children of the same ingroup showed equal attitudes towards homosexuality. However, the researcher's influence as an authority figure could have as well impacted their attitudes through positive reinforcement. The present study contributed to the gap in research regarding kindergarten children's attitudes towards homosexuality. To have a better overview of the results, future studies should include additional variables like kindergarten's cultural and geographical differences.