Teenage attitudes towards sexual diversity in Spain

Abstract This article reports of findings from a study among Spanish school students, with the goal of examining homophobia as perceived and expressed in three different contexts: education, the family and socially. A survey on adolescence and sexual diversity was administered to 128 tenth-grade students in their 4th year of secondary school in Castellón, Spain. Data were analysed both descriptively and inferentially so as to reveal any similarities and differences by gender. Findings reveal relatively high levels of homophobic attitudes and the need for intervention at the school level. Suggestions are made about the best ways in which this might occur.

homosexuals; and liberal homophobia accepts or 'allows' the expression of homosexuality in the private sphere but considers any public expression to be inappropriate (Borrillo 2001 in Pichardo, 2009). Across a range of contexts, high levels of homophobia have been found among secondary school students (O'Higgins-Norman 2009;Guasp 2012;Jones 2015). Homophobic behaviours together with teacher unpreparedness to respond cause LGBTI+ students to be subject to isolation and violence, with serious consequences for physical and mental health, both in the short-term and later in life (Martxueta 2013 in Penna and Sánchez 2015). The potential impact of bullying on young LGBTI+ people's emotional wellbeing and mental health may manifest itself in self-harm, depression and/or attempted suicide. Bullying also has an impact on school attendance and engagement, educational attainment and potential for employment and promotion (Formby 2015).
Research has shown that European LGBTI+ youth experience significantly higher levels of discrimination and verbal, physical, and sexual violence than their heterosexual peers during their school years (Magić and Maljevac 2016). Because of this, schools should address homophobia in all areas of their work (Warwick and Aggleton 2013). It is particularly important to work on sexuality and gender identity together, as research has identified a clear connection between gender, misogyny and homophobic attitudes (Generelo and Pichardo 2005;Prati 2012;Jones 2014).
In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the experiences of LGBTI+ school students. There is growing concern about anti-LGBTI+ violence and bias against young people as a human rights issue and a barrier to global development (Kosciw and Pizmony-Levy 2016). Although homophobic bullying has long existed in and beyond schools, only recently has study of its nature and consequences been undertaken in Spain.
An early study of homophobia was carried out in schools in the autonomous community of Madrid (Generelo and Pichardo 2005). The authors found significant gender differences, with girls showing more tolerance for and understanding of LGBTI+ experience than boys. Research was later extended to all of Spain in a study entitled Adolescence and Minority Sexualities: Excluded voices (Galofre, Generelo, and Pichardo 2008). This found that a wide range of contexts-from the family to the school, but including peer groups and religious communities-could become spaces of exclusion. Inspired by the interest that the study results generated, a third study entitled Attitudes about the Diversity of the Adolescent Population of Coslada (Madrid) and San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria) (Pichardo et al. 2007) involved a larger population sample. Findings revealed a serious lack of knowledge about LGBTI+ people's experience: a high percentage of students, especially boys, showed an overt rejection of homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality, but a considerable but hidden, proportion of students also expressed feelings of attraction towards persons of the same sex. In a similar vein, two research studies undertaken by the National Youth Institute -Respect for Sexual Diversity among Children and Adolescents (INJUVE 2010) and Youth and Sexual Diversity (INJUVE 2011) -both identified high indices of LGBTI-phobia among youth in Spain, and study titled Abrazar la Diversidad: Propuestas para una educación libre de acoso homofóbico y transfóbico (Pichardo and De Stefano 2015) also revealed a high frequency of insults, mockery and aggression directed towards sexual-affective diversity. 1 Against this background, in the present study we sought to investigate attitudes towards sexual-affective diversity among the school student population in the city of Castellón. The city, located on the Mediterranean coast, is the provincial capital and forms part of the Valencian Community, one of 17 autonomous communities 2 in Spain. The city has a population of approximately 172,000 inhabitants and 35 primary schools (from 6 to 12 years old), 13 secondary schools (from 12 to 16 years old), 11 secondary schools (from 16 to 18 years old) and a public university.
Between 1991 and 2015, the city council was controlled by the Partido Popular (PP), one of the conservative party in Spain. The PP also controlled the Generalitat Valenciana, the government of the Valencian Community, from 1995 to 2015. Although the passing of a law allowing same sex marriage in 2005 was a legal milestone in Spain, it was not approved of by all citizens. Just days before it was passed by the central government in Madrid, a major demonstration occurred in defence of the heterosexual family, in which both the PP and the Catholic Church actively participated. The PP later appealed to the Constitutional Court to rescind the law, alleging that it damaged the institution of marriage, although the challenge was not upheld. Pichardo et al. 's (2007) earlier research focused on very different contexts to our own and was carried out over a decade ago. Our study is the first of its kind to be undertaken in a city where the need for an assessment at one at the best known schools in the city was called for after high levels of homophobia were reported informally among the students. The educational psychologist at the secondary school contacted us due to her anxiety about the homophobic attitudes that had begun to appear among year-4 students (15-16 years old). These were expressed in the form of insults during class changeovers. Following this initial contact, we approached the school management team with a proposal to administer a questionnaire to all year-4 students to assess their levels of homophobia prior to an educational intervention. In the present paper, we focus primarily on the results of the survey.
Our research had the following specific objectives: to identify levels of homophobia among the student population in three different domains (education, family and social) and to analyse the differences between boys and girls with respect to homophobic attitudes to various items in the questionnaire. Specifically, we focused on the attitudes of students in their final year of compulsory education.

Methods
The study was largely descriptive in character, since we were interested in collecting data on various aspects, dimensions and components of the phenomenon being investigated (Hernández, Fernández, and Baptista 2010). In this case, our interest was in students' attitudes towards homophobia. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire survey.

Participants
A number of factors informed our choice of study population. First, the secondary school in question was located in Castellón, the city where our university is located. Second, the study was conducted in response to a request by a local school educational psychologist, who wanted us to assess the views of final students. Third, the school principal showed interest in the subject of the study and thereby facilitated it. Finally, the creation of a local LGBTI+ collective in the city meant that we could later undertake intervention activities with their participation and support.
Specifically, the sample comprised 128 students aged 15 to 18 years (the wide age range is explained by the presence of several students who were repeating courses). 56.2% were female (72), and 43.8% (56) male. Regarding place of birth, 35 students (approximately 27.3% of the sample) reported coming from countries other than Spain: 26 from Romania, 3 from Peru, 2 from Colombia, and 1 from each of Ecuador, Argentina and China; 5 students did not answer this question.

Data collection
The survey instrument used (the Survey on Adolescence and Sexual Diversity) had originally been devised by Pichardo et al. (2007). It consisted of 16 multiple-choice questions designed to assess young people's attitudes towards sexual-affective diversity (see Supplementary Material, Appendix 1). Questions are organised around three contexts (except for item 1, which does not focus on any one specific area): homophobia in the educational context (item 6, 7.2, 8, 9), in the family context (item 7.1, 9), and in the social context (items 3, 4, 5 and 7.3).
In this study, we will only examine responses to questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8 and 9, since these are the 11 questions that correspond closely to our objectives. While the questionnaire had not been previously validated, we considered it well suited to the research as it had been widely used in multiple prior studies (Galán, Puras, and Riley 2009;Tosso and Sáinz 2015;Garrido-Hernansaiz et al. 2017;Pascual-Soler et al. 2017). A reliability test using the Kuder Richardson 20 coefficient (Kuder and Richardson 1937) was performed. Answers from items 3 to 9 were coded in a binary way, with answers showing respect for sexual diversity being given a value of 1 and with a value of 0 being assigned to the opposite. The questionnaire showed good reliability on the test (KR-20 = .713), given that only 7 items were analysed.
Permission to administer the questionnaire was granted by the local education department. After obtaining this authorisation, we sent the questionnaire and an explanation of the project's aims to the school management team. At a meeting of the School Council (the school's decision-making body) consisting of school managers, administrators, teachers, students and families, the proposed study was discussed and approved. Following this we contacted the school educational psychologist to arrange a suitable time to administer the questionnaire in class.

Analysis of the results
We used the statistical software SPSS, version 23.0, to analyse the data. To avoid problems of missing data, we performed a listwise deletion (Enders 2010), as less than 1% of the study participants had missing values in their answers (Allison 2002). Data were subjected to descriptive analysis, Student's t-tests for independent samples, and χ 2 tests to compare frequencies by gender. Below, we only focus on the significant results. To simplify the tables, we do not provide entire data from the Student's t-test and the χ 2 test results.

Results
Responses to item 1 revealed that the great majority of students had heard of or witnessed homophobic acts, especially insults, negative comments and mockery, whereas nearly 37% of the sample students had witnessed physical attacks. This percentage fell when the respondents are those who had perpetrated or suffered from these behaviours. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that between 10 and 15% of the respondents indicated they had insulted, spoked badly of, or even stopped speaking to an LGBTI+ student (Table 1).
Gender differences were present in the use of insults, speaking badly of, or mocking LGBTI+ persons. There were significant differences between boys and girls, since the sampled girls reported fewer insults than the boys (χ 2 = 3.585, p = .05, df = 3) and were less likely to have engaged in mocking behaviour (χ 2 = 2.82, p = .09, df = 3). The results also show that boys received more insults in response to their homosexual orientation, whereas their girl peers were more likely to be spoken badly about or given the 'silent treatment' (Table 2).

Educational context
In the case of responses to item 6 (responses to a teacher who tells you they are homosexual), nearly 100% of the sample stated that the most important aspect was being a good teacher,   (7) 12.5% (7) 16.6% (12) 8.9% (5) rather than the teacher's sexual orientation. A small minority (7%) of participants stated that they would like their teacher to be homosexual because this would enhance their lives (Table 3). Regarding item 7.2 (how do you think gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals are treated at school?), the school was perceived in general to be more unfair in terms of its treatment of LGBTI+ persons than the family domain (see item 7.1), although less unfair than society at large (see item 7.3). In our sample, 63.3% of the students viewed the school as a hostile space. With respect to gender, the percentages were very similar and no statistical significant differences were found, although the boys stated that the school treated gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual persons more unfairly (Table 4).
Responses to item 8 (if the student next to you said that they were gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual, how would you react?) show that, in general, students' attitudes would not change, and that they might even support their fellow students if they were LGBTI+ (albeit at a lower percentage). It is worth noting that approximately 20% of the students would still feel somewhat uncomfortable in this situation. In the case of transsexual persons, this percentage was higher; people in this group likely encounter the most difficulties and rejection ( Table 5).
The percentage of boys who would feel uncomfortable about a classmate telling them that he or she was gay or bisexual was much higher than the percentage of girls reporting this attitude. With respect to reactions to lesbian women, girls reported feeling more uncomfortable than the boys. For reactions to transsexual persons, 73.6% of the girls reported that nothing would change, but this percentage was only 33.9% for the boys. Table 6 reveals significant differences between boys and girls in several options related to this item.
In relation to item 9 (if you are, or others thought you were, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, what do you think the reaction of ... would be?), students thought that the most negative reactions would come from their schoolmates: 32% thought that their schoolmates would reject them, and 6% believed that they might be subjected to physical abuse. They felt that only approximately 20% of their classmates would support them and that there Table 3. item 6. Response to a teacher who tells you they are homosexual (overall and by gender).

General
Girl Boy this would be a reason to mock them 0.7% (1) 0% (0) 1.8% (1) Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals should not be teachers 0.7% (1) 0% (0) 1.8% (1) i would tell my family so that they could complain to the school 0% (0) 0% (0) 0% (0) What is important is that the person is a good teacher, not their sexual orientation 97.6% (125) 97.2% (70) 98.2% (55) i would like this because i think it would greatly enhance my life 7% (9) 11.1% (8) 1.8% (1) χ 2 = 4.089, p = .04  (1) 0% (0) would be attempts to change them (11%). The students surveyed believed that teachers would react in the most positive way to support them, although a high percentage thought that teachers would avoid the issue. Finally, students noted that while most of the support would come from their friends, it would also be those friends who would most ardently try to change them (Table 7). Girls felt much more supported by their friends than did boys; in fact, there were significant differences between girls and boys since girls were less likely to think that they would be ignored (χ 2 = 3.585, p = .05, df = 3) and more likely to think that they would be supported by their friends (χ 2 = 11.92, p = .00, df = 3). Girls were however more uncertain about how teachers would react but stated that they would receive support more than the boys did (Table 8).

Family context
Overall, responses to item 7.1 (how do you think that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals are treated by their families?) were balanced. Approximately 50% of the students believed that the treatment of LGBTI+ persons in the family context was similar to that in other domains, whereas 43.7% believed that it was more unfair.
The distribution of responses by gender was the same as the general distribution of responses, although girls were slightly more positive than boys in their perception of the treatment that LGBTI+ persons receive in the family context (Table 9).
For item 9 (if you are, or others thought you were, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, what do you think the reaction of ... would be?), the overall results reveal that nearly 20% of the sample thought that family members would attempt to change them. Slightly more than half of the students stated that they were certain that their families would support them if they were LGBTI+.

Society in general
In    (13) 19.6% (11) they would try to change me 12.5% (9) 16.1% (9) 1.4% (1) 0% (0) 8.3% (6) 16.1% (9)  in the same way as a man and a woman might (kissing, hugging, walking hand-in-hand …)? A small percentage stated that it does not matter what the couple does, so long as it is not done in public. Although the percentage is much lower, a very few young people said they were disgusted when seeing two men showing affection to each other in public (Table 11). When we analysed the data by gender, we found that girls were significantly less homophobic than boys in their responses to item 3, to which a higher percentage of boys stated that it does not matter what the couple does provided it is not done in public. These findings were statistically significant in terms of the differences between boys and girls (χ 2 = 6.576, p = .01, df = 3). In addition, although both girls and boys had high scores for this item, there were also significant differences in the response 'It's fine with me' in favour of girls (χ 2 = 2.755, p = .09, df = 3).
Responses to item 4 differed slightly from those to item 3. Although we found higher percentages for the 'It's fine with me' option and lower ones for 'I don't care what they do, so long as it's not in public' option, the percentage of girls who reported 'I am disgusted when it see it' and 'I think it's wrong, they shouldn't do it' options was higher than those for the boys. Nevertheless, statistically significant differences between boys and girls were evidenced in girls' greater tolerance for public displays of affection between two girls (t = .01) (χ 2 = 5.949, p = .01, df = 1) (Table 12).
For item 5 (do you believe it is right to treat people who are attracted to people of their same sex with disrespect?), nearly all the sample students thought that treating LGBTI+ persons disrespectfully was unacceptable. The vast majority of both boys and girls stated that disrespectful treatment of LGBTI+ persons was not acceptable, but the percentage of girls holding this view was significantly higher than that of boys (t = .02), (χ 2 = 5.331, p = .02, df = 3) (Table 13). Table 11. item 3. What do you think about a male couple showing their feelings in public in the same way as a man and a woman might (kissing, hugging, walking hand-in-hand…)? item 4. What do you think about a female couple showing their feelings in public in the same way as a man and a woman might (kissing, hugging, walking hand-in-hand…)? (overall results).

Item 3
Item 4 i think it's wrong, they shouldn't do it 3.1% (4) 2.3% (3) i am disgusted when it see it 5.5% (7) 1.5% (2)   For item 7.3 (how do you think society in general treats gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals?), the overall majority of students believed that LGBTI+ persons receive more unfair treatment. This percentage was higher among the girls (Table 14).

Discussion
The results show that nearly 90% of the surveyed students had witnessed or heard insults about LGBTI+ persons, more than 80% had witnessed negative comments or rumours, and more than 75% had seen mocking behaviour. Nearly 40% of the students surveyed had witnessed some sort of physical violence related to a person's sexual orientation at some point. These results are in line with findings from studies by Generelo and Pichardo (2005), Pichardo et al. (2007), Pichardo and De Sefano (2015) and Fulcher (2017). When we contrast these results to those the homophobic actions (insults, comments and mockery) reported as perpetrated by responding students, only 15% stated that they had carried out homophobic actions. There was a notable contrast between the high rate of respondents who have witnessed aggression and the low numbers of those who identify as perpetrators of such actions. This finding may be due to the prevalent politically correct discourse and to the difficulty of self-identifying as an aggressor. Qualitative studies are required to further our understanding of this phenomenon and thereby ferret out the causes of homophobia both in the power dynamics present between adolescents and in the complexities of cases of bullying.
With respect to gender, girls were less likely to exhibit attitudes and participate in activities involving rejection or aggression. This finding aligns with those of prior studies (Generelo and Pichardo 2005). The difference suggests that there is a harsher social punishment for boys who do not conform to conventional heterosexual roles or practices. Similar results were found by Prati (2012), whose scores showed that aggressive homophobic behaviours were directed more towards male than female students. Male students also perpetrated more acts of homophobic aggression than female students. However, there are two exceptions to this general pattern. Sexism and homophobia combine to construct one another, resulting in the harassment of the most vulnerable boys and girls: nonconformity to gender and sexuality norms is persecuted, independent of the person's sexual orientation and gender (Platero 2008).  In the educational context, data reveal school to be a hostile space. According to students, school is where the most negative reactions to the possibility of being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual occur. Study findings show there are students who would feel uncomfortable if a schoolmate revealed a sexual orientation that differs from the norm. This affective homophobia, manifests itself in those who report feelings of 'disgust' or 'revulsion' towards a homosexual others. Transsexual persons encounter the most difficulties and rejection in this regard. We found that boys felt more uncomfortable with gay men, as did girls with lesbians.
Our results suggest that homophobia in schools may be especially difficult to tackle for a variety of reasons. The normalisation of homophobic violence can place students in a vulnerable position (Pichardo 2009;Sánchez Sáinz 2009and Penna 2012. Formby (2015) found that teachers often feel they do not have the skills needed to confront bullying linked to gender and sexual diversity. Programmes and educational initiatives are needed to develop sexual-affective education from an inclusive point of view. Positive affirmations of lesbian, gay and bisexual people should be promoted as part of the school curriculum (Brito 2007). The approach h detailed by Leonardi and Staley (2015) with local teachers, preservice teachers, educational leaders, and teacher educators, may be useful in this respect.
Students considered the family less homophobic than other domains. Nonetheless, nearly half the students thought that LGBTI+ persons would be more unfairly treated at home than in the school or other social environments. However, nearly 20% of the surveyed participants thought that the families of LGBTI+ persons would attempt to change them, suggesting that a minority of people believe that sexual orientation can be modified.
By marking the option 'I think it's wrong, they shouldn't do it' , students expressed explicit and open homophobia of a cognitive nature. When a student says that 'I am disgusted when it see it' , he or she manifests an affective type of homophobia, whereas by choosing the option 'I don't care what they do, so long as it's not in public' they are expressing liberal homophobia, which implies that homosexual behaviour is seen as a shameful reality that should not be displayed. The display of affection we presented to the students in this survey was of the kind that heterosexual couples routinely display in public spaces without causing any kind of disgust. Although these attitudes are generally accepted, in this survey we encountered a degree of liberal homophobia: LGBTI+ individuals can do it, but not in public.
Regarding gender, we found that the girls were less liberally homophobic. Interestingly, for boys there was a greater degree of tolerance of lesbian rather than male homosexual behaviour. Pichardo (2009) notes that this greater degree of male acceptance of sex between women may be linked to the construction, primarily through pornography and the communications media, of lesbian sex as an object of desire for heterosexual men. Teachers should therefore be trained to acknowledge and address the role of hegemonic masculinity and heterocentricity in schools and classrooms as part of work to challenge homophobia.
It is noteworthy that the students showed a good understanding of the presence of homophobia in society, with percentages near 90% in all the variables. They were aware of the unequal treatment of LGBTI+ people in society. Building on this, analysing and challenging the factors influencing discrimination should be one of the priorities of any educational policy, since these factors limit the ability to live peacefully with others and impede social and personal development (Penna 2013). For teachers to play their part in tackling homophobia in schools, they must act against it through a high quality educational response to the presence of sexual-affective diversity (Penna and Sánchez 2015).
Following our assessment of students' attitudes in this project, we carried out a pilot activity in classrooms. Three workshops were run in which issues of affective-sexual diversity were addressed through a series of activities stimulated by the life stories of LGBTI+ people who came into the school to share their experiences and discuss with the students what they had learned about sexuality and gender identity. This was followed by a debate in which the students were encouraged to question the discourses and exclusions inherent in heteronormativity.
If diversity of sexuality and gender identity remains invisible, the result is the reinforcement of heteronormativity. Schools thereby become the facilitators of social exclusion. As work within the geography of sexuality has highlighted (Duncan 1996;Longhurst 2001), place and space are central to the production of sexed bodies, of desires, practices and identities. Beginning from the idea that there is little is innate or natural either in space or in sexuality, human geographers have shown how sex and sexualities are created by way of spaces, places and environments. On the one hand, public spaces are usually understood as heterosexual, and uncomplicated representations of heterosexuality, reinforcing heteronormativity, are expected to be publicly visible (Brown and Browne 2016). Those who do not obey these norms are identified and rejected, often through verbal and/or physical violence (Browne 2004 and. On the other hand, spaces are also dynamic and potentially transformational. It is important to recognise this if education is to ensure a range of human diversity and complexity is reflected in a multiplicity of options, desires, expressions and practices of sexual and gender identity. Queer pedagogy may offer a framework that allows us to rethink educational interventions. The objective of queer pedagogy is not limited to or exclusively centred on the issues linked to the experience of LGBTI+ identities; rather, it seeks to destabilise the normal/abnormal dichotomy. Queer epistemology destabilises sexual identities, by grouping together homosociability and homosexuality among other practices (Sedgwick 1998), thereby offering alternatives for thinking, structuring and normativising pedagogical practices (Ugena 2010;Planella and Pie 2012). Queer pedagogy goes beyond the simple challenge of understanding gender and sexual identity to deconstruct the categories and the languages that support them (Meyer 2007).
As Taylor et al. (2016) note, training teachers on LGBTI+ issues has an important contribution to make to the pursuit of social justice. Similarly, a pedagogy that 'reveals the lack of reflection about normalcy' (Britzman 2002, 203) problematises 'the normalising strategies that, in the framework of other sexual identities (and also in the context of other identity-providing groups, such as race, nationality and class), seek to dictate and restrict the available ways of living and being' (Louro 2001, 16). Incorporating a queer perspective into teaching provides a means for rethinking current educational practices and the power relations present in school. Such a pedagogy questions discourses and practices of sexual normalisation and the scholastic practices that promote, reproduce and legitimise the discourse of heterosexuality as the only possible identity (Alegre 2013).
Queer pedagogy may also seek to question dominant social norms, how they affect people and how power dynamics and social privilege arising from heteronormativity challenge us at various levels. It is an educational approach that aims to go beyond the discourse of victimisation of LGBTI+ others. A growing body of work suggests the need for caution when stating the risks gender and sexual minority youth face and portraying (young) LGBTI+ people as 'victims' . Airton (2013, in Formby 2015, and Rasmussen andCrowley (2004, 428-9, in Formby 2015) note the common portrayal of LGBTI+/queer youth as 'wounded' or 'suffering' , which 'deflect[s] research and pedagogy away from a consideration of the operations of heteronormativity in schooling towards a focus on individual/group pathology' . Such an educational approach places the responsibility on the individual rather than examining the structural dynamics of sexuality-and gender-based inequality. In contrast, queer pedagogy allows us to address the complexity of sexualities and expressions of gender from an intersectional perspective that must be grounded in these structural dynamics.

Limitations
This study is not without its limitations, notably, small sample size and the use of a non-validated data collection instrument. Regarding sample size, our study responded to a request for work with students in their 4th year of compulsory secondary education. We cannot generalise from such a group since the representativeness of the sample is limited. With respect to the use of a non-validated instrument, the questionnaire has been used previously in several studies in Spain with a considerable impact and engages with a variety of issues that aligned closely with the objectives of our study. Future research might usefully extend this work to other schools and years, taking into account the contributions of teachers and LGBTI+ students, and using a mixed methodology that incorporates discussion groups and interviews.

Notes
1. The term sexual-affective diversity is used to refer to the varying sexual options and forms of affectivity present in modern-day society and their richness. 2. An autonomous community is a first-level political and administrative division, created under the Spanish constitution of 1978, designed to guarantee limited autonomy for the nationalities and regions that make up Spain.