Thousands of children throughout the United States are currently awaiting placement with
adoptive families. The literature indicates that gay- and lesbian-headed households can well
meet the needs of these children. Research suggests that sexual prejudice, religious
fundamentalism and attitudes about gay and lesbian adoption may influence practice decisions
regarding placement. This dissertation study examined the influences of religious
fundamentalism, sexual prejudice, contact with sexually diverse individuals, and attitudes
towards gay men and lesbians as adoptive parents on intent to place children in need with gay
and lesbian couples. A random sample of National Association of Social Workers (NASW)
members was surveyed; 1000 surveys were distributed and 303 usable surveys were returned.
Religious fundamentalism was measured using the Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale
(Altemeyer & Huntsberger, 2004), sexual prejudice was measured using the Attitudes toward
Gay Men and Lesbians (Herek, 1994) and attitudes towards gay and lesbians as adoptive parents
was measured using Attitudes toward Gay Men and Lesbians as Adoptive Parents scale (Ryan,
2000). To assess willingness to use gay or lesbian couples as adoptive parents, respondents were
asked to rank first and second choices on ten scenarios; two scenarios reflected easy to place
children and eight hard to place children. A sizable minority of respondents failed to respond to
the scenarios. Those opting out tended to score lower on religious fundamentalism, sexual
prejudice, and held more positive attitudes towards gay and lesbian adoption.
Further, some respondents never included gay or lesbian couples; these respondents
tended to score higher on religious fundamentalism, sexual prejudice, and negative attitudes to
gays and lesbian couples as adoptive parents than those choosing at least one gay/lesbian
response. Religious fundamentalism predicted sexual prejudice, which predicted negative
attitudes towards gays and lesbians as adoptive parents. Religious fundamentalism also directly
influenced attitudes towards gay and lesbians as adoptive parents. In addition, personal contact
with sexually diverse individuals partially influenced sexual prejudice. Overall, the results
indicate that some professionals are inappropriately influenced by their personal values.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-08302010-192722 |
| Date | 31 August 2010 |
| Creators | Mallinger, Gayle M |
| Contributors | Gary Koeske, Ph.D., Daniel Rosen, Ph.D., Rafael Engel, Ph.D., Kevin Kim, Ph.D. |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08302010-192722/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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