Abstract

CERQUEIRA-SANTOS, Elder  and  SANTANA, Geovanna. Homoparental adoption and prejudice: beliefs of law and social service students. Temas psicol. [online]. 2015, vol.23, n.4, pp. 873-885. ISSN 1413-389X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.9788/TP2015.4-06.

Attorneys and social workers are key actors in implementing new practices for gay adoption, however, it seems to exist a lack of training on human development and sexuality during the decision-making process. The aim of this study is to investigate the belief of law and social worker students on sexual orientation and homoparental adoption. The study included 132 students, 67 (49.2%) enrolled in Social Service major and 65 (50.8%) in law, all from a public university, with mean age of 25 years (SD =5.51). Two scales were used (beliefs about homosexuality and homoparental adoption belief), moreover, it was asked about the contact and information about homosexuality. In general, social work students had higher percentages for positive beliefs while law students had higher percentages for negative beliefs on both scales. The agreement found for the adoption among law students was 61.01 while social services got 68.87 (t =12.27, p <.001). On the scale of homosexual prejudice, law students got 22.80 and social work students got 21.65 (t =2.03, p =.045). There were found correlation between beliefs, interpersonal contact and friendship with homosexual. This study found that these future professionals yet have little knowledge about sexual orientation and consequences of adoption by homosexual couples.

Keywords : Adoption; homosexuality; family; prejudice.

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