Teacher Attitudes Towards the Representation of Homosexuality in Film and Television: A New Self-report Questionnaire

The aims of the present research were to evaluate the preliminary psychometric properties of a new measure for evaluating teachers' attitudes towards the representation of homosexuality in film and television, and to explore the association between moral disengagement and teachers' negative attitudes towards homosexual representations. Participants were 241 Italian primary and secondary school teachers. The new self-report measure comprises 14 items or 8 items (brief version) scored on a 5-point Likert scale. Teachers completed three instruments: the new measure created to capture participants' social and emotional evaluations of homosexuality in film and television, the latent and manifest prejudice scale, and the Italian moral disengagement scale. Exploratory factor analysis of the new measure suggested a single factor. The results demonstrated that the measure had satisfactory construct and convergent validity and reliability. Finally, we identified how teachers' dehumanization of victims and euphemistic labelling were positively associated with their negative attitudes towards representations of homosexuality.