Students' Attitude towards Gender Issues and Sexuality: Input to a Primer on Gender Equality

Abstract

Introduction

Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development, and building good governance. Gender equality, formerly limited to equal rights and responsibilities between men and women, now extends to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders. This issue is becoming evident in the field of education since students have been raising concerns about this matter. Thus, this research has been conducted to describe students' attitudes towards gender and sexuality.

Methods

This study employed a quantitative descriptive design, with 100 randomly selected junior high school and senior high school students. A survey questionnaire was used to determine and compare any significant difference between their attitude towards gender equality, issues, and sexuality. Inferential and descriptive statistics (percentage, mean, frequency distribution, and Pearson r) were used to analyze the gathered data.

Results

Resultsshowed there is no significant difference between the attitude towards gender equality, issues, and sexuality of the junior high school and senior high school respondents and the results showed that both groups mostly agree that there is equality between LGBT and heterosexuals in terms of gender equality, issues, and sexuality.

Discussions

Consequently, most of the respondents agree that there is an equal treatment between the LGBT people and heterosexuals in terms of opportunities in education and employment, interacting with different people, and having a positive outlook towards issues regarding same-sex marriage and discrimination.