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Chinese College Students’ Attitudes Toward Homosexuality: Exploring the Effects of Traditional Culture and Modernizing Factors

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Abstract

Using survey data of 494 college students from two universities in China, this study explores the effects of traditional culture (filial piety, parental attitudes toward homosexuality, and attitudes toward sexuality) and social changes accompanying modernization (intergroup contact and exposure to homosexuality in the media) on attitudes toward homosexuality as well as gay and lesbian people in China. This study finds that Chinese college students generally hold accepting attitudes toward homosexuality, although the extent of tolerance is limited, and is affected by various factors. Traditional cultural factors predict less tolerance for homosexuality and gay and lesbian people, whereas modernizing factors predict greater tolerance. Although both traditional and modernizing factors shape contemporary attitudes toward homosexuality in Chinese society, modernizing variables seem to have a greater impact. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. In February 2014, several US state legislatures proposed anti-gay segregation laws, allowing the refusal of service based on religious disapproval of same-sex marriages (Sanchez & Marquez, 2014). In December 2013, Uganda parliament passed an anti-homosexuality law, later signed by the president, with punishments of up to life imprisonment (BBC News 2013); in June 2013, the Russian national parliament unanimously adopted, and President Vladimir Putin signed, a nationwide law banning the distribution of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors (Rose 2013).

  2. Transgender rights are not directly addressed in this paper but since gay and lesbian rights are crucial elements of the LGBT movement, we choose to retain the integrity of the movement by using “LGBT rights.”

  3. The Opening Door policy was implemented in 1978, which marks the beginning of a series of economic reforms in China to establish a market economy.

  4. Students who enrolled in lower level undergraduate courses in the social sciences at both universities were sampled.

  5. We included the issue of military service in constructing the dependent variable because it captures a generalized mistrust of homosexuals in holding public positions, although it is noteworthy that the specific history and status of homosexuality in China provide different contexts for biases and discriminations, in comparison to the West. Given the limit to length, we were unable to discuss these contexts fully in this paper. However, preliminary results using structural equation modeling with data collected in this project reveal that while American students display a clear causal pattern between moral attitudes toward homosexuality and trust in homosexual individuals in public positions and the military, for the Chinese counterparts, no clear causal pattern (although loose association exists) can be found.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, 325 Smith Hall, Newark, DE, 19716, USA

    Kai Lin

  2. School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Criminal Justice Program, Stockton University, 101 Vera King Farris Drive, Galloway, NJ, 08205, USA

    Deeanna M. Button

  3. College for Criminal Law Science, Beijing Normal University, No.19 Xin Jie Kou Wai Street, Beijing, 100875, China

    Mingyue Su

  4. Party School of the CPC Xiamen Municipal Committee, Xiamen, China

    Sishi Chen

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  1. Kai Lin
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  2. Deeanna M. Button
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  4. Sishi Chen
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Correspondence to Kai Lin.

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Kai Lin declares that he/she has no conflict of interest. Deeanna M. Button declares that he/she has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Lin, K., Button, D.M., Su, M. et al. Chinese College Students’ Attitudes Toward Homosexuality: Exploring the Effects of Traditional Culture and Modernizing Factors. Sex Res Soc Policy 13, 158–172 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-016-0223-3

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