Sexualization of Children or Human Rights? Attitudes Toward Addressing Sexual-Orientation Diversity in School

ABSTRACT Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adolescents are more likely to experience mental health problems than their heterosexual peers because they are victimized more often or fear discrimination. Governmental plans to improve this situation by addressing sexual diversity in German schools have been accompanied by public resistance and misinformation, e.g., that they aim to sexualize children. The present study assessed how widespread negative attitudes toward such plans really are and how they can be explained. A random sample of 2,013 German residents was surveyed by phone. Only 10% opposed promoting acceptance of LGB in school. Approval of such plans was predominantly predicted by respondents’ beliefs about sexual orientation and the plans’ aim, and only marginally by societal values. Respondents who knew that the plans’ aim was to promote acceptance of LGB and not to sexualize children and that children with same-sex parents are just as well off as those with heterosexual parents showed higher approval, whereas respondents who believed that homosexuality is affected by socialization showed higher opposition.

In 2013, the new governing coalition of the Green Party and the Social Democratic Party in Baden-Württemberg-a formerly conservative-governed federal state in southeastern Germany-announced a plan to teach sexualorientation and gender diversity in school (Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, 2013).This plan mobilized resistance on a previously unimagined scale.A teacher initiated an online petition with the title "No 2015 education plan under the rainbow ideology" (Stängle, 2013, translated by the present author) that was signed by more than 200,000 people.Organizers and participants in so-called "demonstrations for everybody" expressed fear of "sexualization" and "gender experiments" CONTACT Ulrich Klocke klocke@hu-berlin.deInstitut für Psychologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin.
involving children and adolescents as well as of a promotion of "gay lifestyles."Often, the implied accusations were unsupported claims about the promotion of sexual practices or fantasies that were never included in the education plan.
But why should schools deal with sexual orientation and gender at all?There are two reasons why schools can play an important role in improving the situation of disadvantaged groups such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI) people.First, because school attendance is compulsory in Germany, no child and adolescent can avoid school, hence, schools must be a safe place for every student and prevent discrimination against disadvantaged groups.Second, compulsory schooling means that no other institution has a comparable societal reach.Therefore, the present study's first aim was to describe the current situation in schools in Germany regarding how teachers deal with sexual-orientation diversity and how open LGB students and teachers are about their sexual orientation.Second, the study aimed to determine how widespread opposition to addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school really is.Third, and most importantly, the study aimed to answer the question of how opposition and support for addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school can be explained: by false beliefs about sexual orientation and the plans' aims or by differing societal values with respect to committed partnerships, family, tradition, and self-determination?Answering these questions might be helpful in resolving the conflict between opponents and proponents of addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school-a conflict that is not restricted to Germany, but also exists in other countries, such as the USA (Richardson, 2022), the UK (John, 2022), Ireland (O'Donoghue & Guerin, 2017), and Australia (O'Neill, 2022).
The reason to focus on LGB instead of LGBTI people is that the study's data belong to a larger dataset from a survey on the population's attitudes toward different sexual orientations, but not toward different gender identities and sexes (Küpper et al., 2017).However, it is likely that the results presented here also apply to attitudes toward including gender diversity in school, because attitudes toward LGB correlate highly with attitudes toward transgender people (Worthen, 2012).

The situation of sexual-minority adolescents
Why should schools feel responsible for improving the situation of sexualminority students?LGB adolescents are more likely to experience mental health problems than their heterosexual peers (Plöderl & Tremblay, 2015) because they are victimized more often or fear discrimination if their sexual orientation were to become public (Burton, Marshal, Chisolm, Sucato, & Friedman, 2013;Dürrbaum & Sattler, 2020).Compared to their heterosexual peers, they think about suicide about twice as often, attempt suicide about three times as often, and these attempts are about four times more likely to be serious enough to require medical attention (Marshal et al., 2011).Victimization due to gender nonconformity increases the risk of suicidality for both LGB and heterosexual adolescents (Ioerger, Henry, Chen, Cigularov, & Tomazic, 2015).Terms such as "fagot," "homo," "sissy," or "lesbian" are often used as swear words (Collier, Bos, & Sandfort, 2013;Klocke, 2012).Even when they are not addressed toward LGB people, they have discriminatory effects.The perception of identity-related terms as swear words in a conversation leads to more negative attitudes toward these groups (e.g., Nicolas & Skinner, 2012).Yet, despite these facts, sexual-orientation diversity has been mostly invisible in school curricula.Only about half of the Council of Europe member states have developed at least some LGBTQI inclusive curricula (Ávila, 2018).Analyses of English curricula in the United Kingdom (Sauntson & Simpson, 2011) and English textbooks in Germany (Bittner, 2012) showed that sexual-orientation diversity was not present at all.In the USA, even though several sexuality education resources include LGBTQ, they are often depicted as a homogenous group in a separate lesson instead of including them in the main curriculum (Elia & Tokunaga, 2015).As there is no representative data on the situation in schools in Germany, the present study's first aim was to describe how often teachers include sexual-orientation diversity in their curricula, how regularly they intervene against discrimination of LGB students, and how often LGB students and teachers are open about their sexual orientation.

What can schools do to improve the situation?
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has called on the member states to provide "objective information with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity, for instance in school curricula and educational materials, and [to provide] pupils and students with the necessary information, protection and support to enable them to live in accordance with their sexual orientation and gender identity," which may include "access to adequate anti-discrimination training or support and teaching aids" (2010, paragraph 32).And indeed, there is evidence that different measures of addressing sexual-orientation diversity in schools can improve the situation for LGB youth.Gay-straight alliances, i.e., support groups with the aim to create a welcoming environment for LGBT students, are able to reduce homophobic bullying and to increase LGBT students' perceived safety (Ioverno, Belser, Baiocco, Grossman, & Russell, 2016;Marx & Kettrey, 2016).Teachers who intervene against homophobic language are likely to reduce discrimination (Czopp & Ashburn-Nardo, 2012) which might be easier when they can refer to an antibullying policy that explicitly includes sexual orientation as a relevant dimension (Kull, Greytak, Kosciw, & Villenas, 2016).Furthermore, schools can indirectly improve the situation for LGB students by reducing their students' prejudice toward LGB, which is a predictor of discriminatory behavior toward lesbian and gay individuals (e.g., Mereish & Poteat, 2015).Many studies have shown that personal contact with LGB individuals reduces prejudice toward the group as a whole (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006;Smith, Axelton, & Saucier, 2009), which also seems to work for LGBT contact interventions in school (e.g., Eick, Rubinstein, Hertz, & Slater, 2016).Even indirect contact (Lemmer & Wagner, 2015) and vicarious contact (Cocco et al., 2021) can improve intergroup attitudes, suggesting that teachers can reduce prejudice by talking about own LGB friends or family members as well as by using teaching material, books, stories, or videos that include LGB or gender nonconforming people (e.g., Shimanoff, Elia, & Yep, 2012).And indeed, curricula inclusive of gender and sexual-orientation diversity go along with more positive attitudes toward LGB people (Klocke, 2012), less bullying and more perceived safety (McKibban & Anderson, 2021).These findings support the education plans of several German states to include topics related to sexual orientation and gender diversity in school curricula in order to promote students' acceptance and respect for LGBTI people (Dissens -Institut für Bildung und Forschung e. V., 2019).

Attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school
What do the people in Germany think about the plans to address sexualorientation diversity in school?And why should we care about this question?In interviews in Ireland and the United Kingdom, teachers expressed concerns about potential negative attitudes of students' parents toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school (O'Donoghue & Guerin, 2017;Sauntson & Simpson, 2011).As public attitudes toward lesbian and gay people in these countries are quite similar to Germany (European Commission, 2019) and as several newspapers reported on the resistance against the plan in Baden-Württemberg (e.g., Wetzel, 2014), it is likely that teachers were reluctant to implement it in order to avoid conflicts with students and parents.Likewise, politicians usually react to public attitudes when developing policies: After the unexpected resistance, the government of Baden Württemberg mitigated their ambitious education plan by changing the initial term "acceptance of sexual and gender diversity" to "tolerance and acceptance of diversity," leaving out the controversial term "sexual and gender" and adding the less ambitious aim of "tolerance" to "acceptance" (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2014).The more than 200,000 signatures under the petition against the education plan suggested that opposition might be widespread.However, in representative surveys conducted prior to the present study, three of four respondents thought students should learn about different sexual orientations in school (Change Centre Foundation, 2015;European Commission, 2015).Yet, some people claim that tolerance must be enough and that the goal of acceptance goes too far (Niggemeier, 2014).Therefore, the second aim of the current study is to describe German residents' attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school in more detail by including also evaluative statements such as the explicitly positive term "acceptance."To increase the likelihood that teachers include sexual-orientation diversity in their lessons, it is important to know how resistance against the education plans can be explained and possibly modified.Thus, identifying predictors of the attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school is the third and most important aim of the present study.This study focused on the reasons that opponents and supporters of the plans brought to the public discourse, particularly their beliefs about sexual orientation and the goals of the educational plans, as well as their societal values.Knowing the effects of beliefs on attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school might help to reduce opposition, as specific beliefs can by influenced by providing information and correcting misinformation.
Furthermore, the present study took sociodemographic and situational variables as a basis to analyze the incremental effects of beliefs and values.It further analyzed whether attitudes similar to the above-mentioned attitudes had effects that mediated some of the effects of the other predictors.Potentially relevant beliefs and values were identified by content analyzing the online petition against the education plan in Baden-Württemberg, supporters' comments on the petition (Stängle, 2013) and coverage in German media on sexual-orientation diversity in schools.This analysis was complemented by the scientific literature on attitudes toward equal rights and inclusion of LGB people in school.As it was impossible to find research specifically on attitudes toward sexual-orientation diversity in school, the following literature review focused on studies on general advocacy for LGBT rights and sometimes also included studies on general attitudes toward lesbians and gays.

Effects of sociodemographic and situational variables
There is evidence that female gender, education, and intergroup contact have positive effects on attitudes toward LGBT: An online survey in the United States showed that women, individuals with a high level of education, and those with close friends who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual more often reported to have engaged in six possible activities on behalf of the LGBT community such as signing a petition to legalize same-sex marriage (Fingerhut, 2011).An online survey of teachers in Germany showed similar results with regard to teachers' self-reported engagement on behalf of LGBTI students in school (Klocke, Latz, & Scharmacher, 2019).Teachers who had personal contact with more LGBTI individuals included sexual-orientation and gender diversity in their lessons more often and intervened more frequently against discrimination of LGBTI students.Moreover, female teachers intervened more frequently against discrimination.These results led to the following hypotheses: H1: (a) A female (vs.male) gender, (b) a high educational level, and (c) the number of personally known LGB people are positively associated with attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.

Effects of beliefs
What are the beliefs about sexual orientation or the education plans' aims that might influence attitudes?The online petition against the education plan in Baden-Württemberg falsely claimed that the plan's aim was to encourage different sexual practices (Stängle, 2013), a claim that was repeated by some newspapers and magazines (e.g., Saur, 2014).Opponents misinterpreted the new curricula, which demand that sexual-orientation and gender diversity should be addressed in school beyond sex education, usually restricted to biology lessons.Analyzing supporters' comments to the petition showed that this misinformation had an effect.Supporters expressed fear that the plan's aim was to teach "that everybody has sexual contacts and practices with everybody and everything" (translated by the author).Furthermore, the petition suggested that students' sexual orientation might be changed by the new curriculum, that is, by discussing sexual-orientation diversity in a positive way.The petition stated that the "negative side effects of an LGBTTIQ lifestyle" were not reflected in the education plan.This argument presupposes that reflecting on these "negative side effects" would prevent students from becoming LGBT or at least from pursuing an "LGBTTIQ lifestyle."This allegation influenced the petition's supporters who wrote comments such as "one should not educate people homosexually" (translated by the author).Past surveys confirm that the more people believe that sexual orientation is affected by nurture such as parental or peer influence and the less they believe it is affected by nature such as genetics, the more negative are their attitudes toward lesbian and gay rights (e.g., Smith, Zanotti, Axelton, & Saucier, 2011).Other comments to the petition denied the existence of discrimination against gay people: "Who criticizes gays?You have to cheer them on to avoid being put into pigeonholes . . . .It's a restriction on freedom of speech!" (translated by the author).In a survey among students of a Midwestern university in the USA, witnessing discrimination such as hearing the word "gay" for something negative increased the likelihood to advocate for LGBT rights (Swank, Woodford, & Lim, 2013).Thus, it is likely that denying discrimination is associated with more negative attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.Further comments by the plan's opponents expressed reservations about same-sex couples' raising children: "It has been proven that a loving family with a father and mother, i.e., with male and female elements in a committed partnership, is the most beneficial for children's development" (translated by the author).These assumptions of the plans' opponents combined with existing research led to the following hypotheses: H2: (a) Believing that the plans' aim was to teach children to engage in different sexual practices is negatively associated with attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school, whereas (b) knowing that the plans' aim was to promote the acceptance of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people is positively associated with these attitudes.
H3: (a) Believing that sexual orientation is a matter of socialization is negatively associated with attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school, whereas (b) believing that people are homosexual since birth is positively associated with these attitudes.H4: (a) Awareness of ongoing discrimination and (b) the belief that children are well off in same-sex couples is positively associated with attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.

Whereas beliefs focus on assumptions about what is, societal values focus on assumptions about what should be or what the ideal society should look like.
The petition, and the comments to it, showed possible value differences between supporters and opponents of the education plan.The petition demanded the protection of marriage and family as values expressed by the German Constitution (Stängle, 2013).One commenter stated that "strengthening these groups means weakening the family.I am against this weakening; the family is the most important foundation of our society."Another commenter criticized that "important values like love and deep feelings" were not taught to children (both translated by the author).The values expressed in these statements are part of established psychological theories on fundamental value dimensions.In Schwartz's (1992) two-dimensional model, opponents of the education plan positioned themselves on the conservation end of the conservation-vs.-openness-to-changedimension by expressing the values of family security and sense of belonging.Moral foundations theory (Haidt, Graham, & Joseph, 2009) divided five groups of virtues into binding versus individualizing foundations with loyalty to the ingroup, e.g., the family, and respect for authority demonstrating binding foundations.Existing research has shown that negative attitudes toward equal rights for lesbians and gays are predicted by conservation values and binding moral foundations such as traditional gender roles and a strict education of children (Callahan & Vescio, 2011;Rhodebeck, 2018), and more generally by tradition, conformity, and security (Kuntz, Davidov, Schwartz, & Schmidt, 2015).
Whereas opponents of the education plan based their argumentation on the values of tradition, family, and a committed partnership, proponents argued by referring to the values of the autonomy and self-determination of every human being, including LGBTI adolescents (GEW, 2017).In Schwartz's (1992) two-dimensional model, they positioned themselves on the opennessto-change end of the conservation-vs.-openness-to-changedimension by expressing the value of self-direction.In moral foundations theory (Haidt et al., 2009), autonomy and self-determination are individualizing foundations expressed by fairness and a reduction of individual harm, e.g., by providing equal rights to members of different groups.In fact, people who base moral judgments on the individual more than on the group, have less negative attitudes toward lesbians and gays (Barnett, Öz, & Marsden, 2018;Rosik, Dinges, & Saavedra, 2013).These results led to the following hypotheses: H5: Valuing (a) committed partnerships and family as well as (b) tradition is negatively associated with attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school, whereas (c) valuing self-determination, is positively associated with these attitudes.

Effects of general attitudes toward LGB and sex education
In addition to sociodemographic and situational variables, beliefs, and societal values, other more general attitudes were expected to predict the specific attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.Often, attitudes toward lesbians and gays have been analyzed as dependent variables, whereas, in the present study, they were analyzed as predictors.It was expected that individuals oppose addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school because they have negative attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.Existing research has shown that these attitudes predict (a lack of) heterosexual advocacy for LGBT rights (Fingerhut, 2011).It is an open question which aspects of these attitudes are most relevant: classical homophobia (e.g., opposing equal rights), modern homophobia (e.g., rejecting open homosexuality), or affective attitudes toward lesbian and gay individuals (e.g., feeling comfortable with the gay teacher of their own son).
H6: (a) Classical and (b) modern homophobia are negatively associated with attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school, whereas (c) affective attitudes to lesbian and gay people are positively associated with these attitudes.
Education about sexual-orientation diversity can also be perceived as part of sex education, even though the Baden-Württemberg plan's proponents more often emphasized its relation to human rights and antidiscrimination.Therefore, attitudes about sex education were also analyzed as predictors, more specifically the attitudes about sex education being the responsibility of the school versus the parents.

Data collection
The data presented here were collected between October 4 th and November 29 th , 2016 via a telephone survey by a company specialized in survey research (Küpper et al., 2017) commissioned by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency of Germany.A simple random sample of landline and mobile household telephone numbers in Germany was collected (using the design by Gabler & Häder, 1997).In each household, the member who was over 16 years old with the most recent birthday was interviewed by one of 64 trained interviewers.Interviewers attempted to reach the target household member 10 times.Interviewers contacted 15,295 telephone numbers and finished the interview with 2,013 respondents, 71.8% on landline and 28.2% on mobile telephones, resulting in a response rate of 13.2%.
To minimize self-selection bias, the survey was described as concerning marriage, family, and partnership, and about people's attitudes about issues currently discussed in society.The focus on lesbian, gay, and bisexual people was not mentioned.Respondents were informed that the study was performed by the Hochschule Niederrhein (a university of applied science), participation was voluntary, and data was stored anonymously.Participants who agreed to participate were asked about the following issues (in the order presentation): (a) societal values, (b) trait empathy, (c) attitudes toward sex education, (d) political attitudes (e.g., toward political parties or immigration), (e) perception of discrimination of groups the respondent belonged to, (f) attitudes toward different social groups, (g) modern homophobia, (h) attitudes toward transgender people, (i) beliefs about LGB, (j) beliefs and attitudes toward education plans addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school, (k) classical homophobia, (l) affective attitudes toward lesbians and gays, (m) own behavior toward LGB as well as behavior of friends and family members, (n) personal contact with LGB, and (o) sociodemographic variables.Respondents younger than 30 years old were also asked four questions about how sexual-orientation diversity was dealt with in their school.To keep the interview to a reasonable length, respondents were randomly split into two groups of equal size (A and B) and some questions were only presented to group A, others only to group B. However, in the present study, except for societal values, only questions that were presented to all respondents were included.On average, interviews took 27.6 minutes (SD = 7.7 minutes).

Sample, weighting, and measurement of sociodemographic variables
Of the 2,013 respondents, 1,024 were asked about their societal values and thus could be included in the regression analyses about attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.Respondents' age ranged from 16 to 92 years (M = 50.0,SD = 17.3); 54.5% identified as women, 45.3% as men; and one respondent each (four total) answered intersex, undefined, don't know, and no answer.To measure education level, participants were asked about their highest level of school qualification or (for students) for their intended school qualification.Most (55.1%) reported Abitur (graduation certificate of an academic high school) or Fachabitur (vocational baccalaureate, coded as 3), 31.4% reported Realschulabschluss (graduation certificate of a middle school, coded as 2), and 13.5% a lower or no certificate (coded as 1).Some respondents reported to have an immigrant background (18.7%), meaning that they did not have German citizenship or that they or at least one of their parents were born outside Germany.Most respondents lived in West Germany, i.e., the area of the former Federal Republic or in Berlin (85.0%), and the rest in East Germany, i.e., the area of the former Democratic Republic (15.0%).For sexual orientation, 93.9% reported to be heterosexual, 2.3% bisexual, 1.5% lesbian or gay, and 0.3% other; 1.3% gave no answer and 0.6% answered "don't know."Respondents were asked whether they had personal contact with people who they knew to be lesbian, gay, or bisexual.Only 19.3% reported no contact at all (coded as 0), 6.2% with one person (coded as 1), 41.1% two to four people (coded as 2), 19.6% five to nine people (coded as 3), 12.8% more than ten (coded as 4), and 1.1% gave no answer.
For the analyses presented in the results, the sample was weighted to correspond to the distribution of gender, age, and education level of the German population (based on the Microcensus of 2014, Forschungsdatenzentrum der Statistischen Ämter der Länder, 2020).The data were weighted to reach the expected proportion for 24 categories, created by a combination of two gender categories (men and women), four age categories (16-29, 30-44, 45-59, and 60 years or older), and three education categories (Abitur or Fachabitur, Realschulabschluss, and lower or no certificate).

Measures
The study has the applied focus to analyze which specific beliefs, values, and attitudes could explain why people approve or disapprove of the plans to address sexual-orientation diversity in school.Focusing on context-specific variables made it easier to derive possible interventions from the results.Existing measures were too long for a telephone survey and/or did not fit the current German context.Therefore, they were adapted by a content analysis of 535 reader comments from 12 German newspaper articles (Welt, Zeit Online, Bild at Facebook) about addressing sexual diversity in school, celebrities' public coming-outs, and LGB rights.Ten items were developed based on the most frequently mentioned categories.Furthermore, six items were derived from statements in the petition against the education plan (Stängle, 2013) and supporters' comments to the petition.The complete questionnaire was pretested in 30 telephone interviews and adapted to increase comprehensibility and acceptance.Scales were developed based on a principalcomponent analysis of beliefs and societal values and a separate principalcomponent analysis of attitudes.For participants who answered at least half of the items of a scale, item scores were averaged to determine scale scores.
Beliefs were assessed by ten items asking participants about the correctness of statements on four-point rating scales from (1) not correct at all to (4) fully correct (see Appendix A for all items).The 408 respondents who had already heard about the education plans were asked two questions about the aims of the plans.The belief Education Plans: Acceptance of LGB (the real aim) was measured by the item "According to the plans, the students should be led to accept homosexual and bisexual people."The belief Education Plans: Engage in Different Sexual Practices (the most repeated misperception in the petition and comments to it) was measured by the item "According to the plans, the students should be encouraged to engage in as many different sexual practices as possible."All respondents were asked eight questions measuring five different beliefs about lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.Four items were adapted from a knowledge test developed for a student survey in 20 Berlin schools (Klocke, 2012); two of them translated from a knowledge test for healthcare professionals (Harris, Nightengale, & Owen, 1995).The validity of the knowledge test was shown by positive relationships with teachers' addressing of sexual-orientation diversity, students' school grade (ninth and tenth versus sixth), as well as students' attitudes and behavior toward LGBT people (Klocke, 2012).The belief Homosexual by Socialization was measured by four items, e.g., "A person is homosexual because their parents raised them differently than most parents" (Cronbach's α = .68).The belief Homosexual Since Birth was measured by the item "A person is homosexual because they were born that way, e.g., because of her genes or hormones during pregnancy."The belief LGB Are Discriminated was measured by two items, e.g., "Homosexuals and bisexuals are still discriminated against or disadvantaged in Germany today" (Cronbach's α = .68).The belief Children Well off With Same-Sex Couples was measured the item "Children who grow up with same-sex couples develop as well as children who grow up with father and mother." Societal values were assessed by eight items (see Appendix B).Respondents were asked how much they agree with the presented value statements on fourpoint rating scales from (1) don't agree at all to (4) fully agree.Four items measured the value Committed Partnerships and Family, e.g., "It is beneficial for society when people enter into a marriage or partnership that lasts until the end of their life" (Cronbach's α = .60).Four items measured the values of selfdetermination and tradition, based on a modified German version (Iser & Schmidt, 2003) of the Portrait Value Questionnaire (Schwartz et al., 2001).The validity of the German version was shown by correlations with different forms of prejudice, especially classical sexism and racism.The value Self-Determination was measured by two items, e.g., "It is beneficial for society when people can decide for themselves what they want to do" (Cronbach's α = .64).The value Tradition was measured by two items, e.g., "It is beneficial for society when people maintain the customs they have learned" (Cronbach's α = .70).
The attitude measures comprised the dependent variable and five predictor variables (see Appendix C).Respondents answered on the same four-point scale as for the measurement of societal values.Five items measured Attitudes Toward Addressing Sexual-Orientation Diversity in School and were mostly based on the aims of the education plan (Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, 2013), e.g., "It should be one of the school's goals to convey the acceptance of homosexual and bisexual persons to students" (Cronbach's α = .72).Classical Homophobia was measured by seven items, e.g., "Homosexuality is a disease" (Cronbach's α = .85).Three items were based on the well-established Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men scale (ATLG, Herek, 1988).To enable comparisons with former surveys, two items from past German representative population surveys on group-focused enmity were included (Heitmeyer & Mansel, 2008).Validity was shown by a strong and continuous decline between 2005 and 2019 that can be expected of measures of classical homophobia (Zick, Küpper, & Berghan, 2019).Two items were based on recent developments in German society: one on attitudes toward gay pride parades and one on laws against discrimination against gay and lesbian people.Modern Homophobia was measured by six items, e.g., "Homosexuals should stop making such a fuss about their sexuality" (Cronbach's α = .83).Three items were based on the well-established Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS, Morrison & Morrison, 2002).Affective Attitudes to Lesbian and Gay People was measured by six items, four of them from an existing affective-attitude scale (Banse, Seise, & Zerbes, 2001;Seise, Banse, & Neyer, 2002), e.g., "You learn that a colleague at work is lesbian" (Cronbach's α = .91).Respondents could answer on four-point scales from (1) very unpleasant to (4) very pleasant.Validity was shown by differences between heterosexual, gay, and lesbian participants; differences between men and women; and correlations with implicit attitudes toward lesbians and gays.The attitude that Sex Education is a Responsibility of the School was measured by five items, e.g., "Sex education is the task of the school" (Cronbach's α = .71).The attitude that Sex Education is a Responsibility of Parents was measured the item, e.g., "Sex education is the task of parents." The 307 respondents between 16 and 29 years old were also asked four questions about their experiences at the schools they currently attended or had attended in the past.They were asked how often (a) teachers used teaching examples or materials in which lesbian, gay, or bisexual people were present, (b) teachers showed disapproval when words such as "faggot," "homo," or "lesbian" were used in a derogatory way, and whether there are or were any openly lesbian, gay, or bisexual (c) teachers and (d) students in the schools that respondents attended or had attended.

Results
The statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 25.Hypotheses were tested with a significance level of p < .05.To achieve the first aim of the study, descriptive results about sexual-orientation diversity in schools in Germany will be presented.For the second aim, descriptive results about the population attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school are presented.Regression analyses were employed to address the third and most important aim: to explain individual differences in these attitudes.A correlation table with all variables is presented in the supporting information (Table 1).

Is sexual orientation diversity an issue in school?
The 307 respondents who were between 16 and 29 years old indicated that sexual-orientation diversity was a rather neglected issue in school.Regarding the schools that they currently attended or had attended, 64% of young respondents reported that teachers never used teaching examples or materials in which lesbian, gay, or bisexual people were present; 28% reported that teachers did this rarely, 6% sometimes, and 2% frequently.Furthermore, 21% reported that teachers never showed disapproval when words as "faggot," "homo," or "lesbian" were used in a derogatory way; 22% reported that teachers did this rarely, 7% in about half the cases, 25% mostly, and 10% each time.Another 15% reported that such words had never been used in a derogatory way in the presence of their teachers.With regard to the behavior of LGB people in the schools they attended or had attended, 74% of young respondents indicated that there are or were no openly lesbian, gay, or bisexual teachers; 18% answered there was one, 7% there were some, and 1% many openly lesbian, gay, or bisexual teachers.With regard to students, numbers were not much higher: 50% said there were none, 23% one, 25% some, and 2% many openly lesbian, gay, or bisexual students in their schools.

How widespread is the opposition to addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school?
All 2,013 participants were asked about their attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.On the one hand, opposition was lower than expected (see Figure 1).Only about one out of four respondents disagreed with the statement that school materials should also include homosexual or bisexual people, and surprisingly, nine out of ten respondents were in favor of schools promoting the acceptance of homosexual and bisexual people to students.Agreement in favor of the prevention of homophobic slurs by schools was a near consensus as well.On the other hand, more than one out of four respondents agreed that addressing sexual diversity in school confuses children in the development of their sexuality and that only heterosexual couples should appear in school when it comes to the topics of love and partnership.It should be one of the school's goals to convey the acceptance of homosexual and bisexual people to pupils.
Schools should do something to prevent students from using terms such as ´faggot´, ´homo´, ´sissy´or ´lesbian´as swear words.
Addressing sexual diversity in school confuses children in the development of their sexuality.
When it comes to the topics of love and partnership, only heterosexual couples of men and women should appear in school.

How can attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school be explained?
In order to answer this question, two hierarchical regression analyses were performed.The first analyzed data from the 944 respondents who had been asked about their societal values and had answered enough questions to have scores on all predictor variables (see the second, fourth, and sixth column of Table 1).Only one fifth of the respondents had already heard about the education plans and were also asked two questions about the aims of the plans.Thus, the effects of beliefs about the education plans' aims could only be analyzed by this subsample (see the third, fifth, and seventh column of Table 1).For the β-coefficients that seemed to differ between the two analyses, a third hierarchical regression analysis was performed to test whether awareness of the education plans was a significant moderator.This was done by including the product terms of awareness and each of these predictors (both z-standardizes) in the regression analysis.Multicollinearity was not an issue as the variance inflation factors never surpassed 5 (the highest scores resulted for classical and modern homophobia which correlated by .78 for the subsample of respondents who had heard about the education plans; all other variance inflation factors were below 2.6).
Step 1 of the hierarchical regression analyzed the effects of six sociodemographic variables and personal contact with lesbian, gay and bisexual people on the attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.Supporting H1b and H1c, respondents who had personal contact with more people whom they knew to be LGB and respondents who had a higher education level were more frequently in favor of addressing sexualorientation diversity in school.The moderator analysis showed that these effects were larger in the subsample of the respondents who had already heard about the education plans.The β-coefficients of the product terms were .09for personal contact, t(930) = 2.82, p = .005,and .08 for educational level, t(930) = 2.50, p = .013.Effects of participants' gender, immigrant background, and sexual orientation were only significant (p< .001) in the total sample.Supporting H1a, men had less positive attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.The product term showed that the effect did not differ significantly depending on awareness of the education plans, β = −.01,t(930) = −0.20,p = .842.Participants with an immigrant background and heterosexual participants had less positive attitudes as well.These effects were (marginally) stronger for respondents who had not heard about the education plans before.The β-coefficients of the product terms were .07 for immigrant background, t(930) = 2.36, p = .018,and −.07 for non-heterosexual orientation, t(930) = −1.94,p = .052.
Step 2 of the hierarchical regression was relevant for answering the third and main question of this study: Was it predominantly beliefs about sexual orientation and the education plans' aims that predicted approval or was it predominantly different basic societal values with respect to selfdetermination, committed relationships, and tradition?Results showed that beliefs were more responsible than values.To analyze the effects of the beliefs about the education plans, respondents who had already heard about these plans were asked about the plan's aims.However, despite their coverage in the media, only 20% of the respondents were aware of the education plans.On average, these respondents seemed to be closer to the LGB community than respondents who had not heard about the education plans.They more often had a non-heterosexual orientation, 7.1% vs. 3.8%, χ 2 (1) = 8.27, p = .004,knew more LGB people personally, M = 2.17, SD = 1.28 vs. M = 1.72,SD = 1.26, t (1,979) = −6.36,p < .001,and had a higher education level, M = 2.28, SD = 0.82 vs. M = 1.87,SD = 0.81, t(1,994) = −9.08,p < .001.Furthermore, they believed less that homosexuality is affected by socialization M = 1.79,SD = 0.62 vs. M = 1.89,SD = 0.62, t(2,011) = 3.01, p = .003,more that LGB people are still discriminated, M = 3.29, SD = 0.70 vs. M = 3.19, SD = 0.71, t(2,011) = −2.51,p = .012,and put less value on tradition, M = 3.27, SD = 0.70 vs. M = 3.37, SD = 0.66, t(1,025) = 1.99, p = .047.For the other analyzed variables, there were no significant differences (all p's > .050).Only 15% of the respondents who had already heard about the education plans believed these plans were aimed at encouraging students to engage in as many different sexual practices as possible, whereas 91% knew they were aimed at improving acceptance of homosexual and bisexual people.Supporting H2a and b, respondents were more in favor of the plans when they knew that their aim was to increase the acceptance of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and not to encourage students to engage in different sexual practices.
Regarding the other beliefs, 73% of the respondents believed that children who grow up with same-sex parents develop just as well as children in heterosexual couples.In particular, this belief was positively associated with attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school, supporting hypothesis H4b.On average, respondents believed that a person is homosexual since birth (M = 2.8, SD = 1.0, scales from 1 to 4) and that homosexuality is hardly affected by socialization (i.e., by experiences with parents or potential sexual partners, M = 1.9, SD = 0.6).Furthermore, most respondents believed that LGB are still discriminated against (M = 3.2, SD = 0.7).In line with H3a, believing that sexual orientation is determined by socialization led to opposition to addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.Partly in line with H3b and H4a, believing that homosexual people are born that way and that they are still discriminated against in Germany had small positive effects on attitudes, but only for the analysis of the whole sample.The product terms showed that the effects did not differ significantly depending on awareness of the education plans, β = −.02,t(921) = −0.60,p = .547for homosexual since birth and β = −.04,t(921) = −1.31,p = .190for LGB are still discriminated.
Considering different societal values, on average respondents agreed that all of them are beneficial for society, especially self-determination (M = 3.7, SD = 0.5, scales from 1 to 4), but also tradition (M = 3.3, SD = 0.7) as well as committed partnership and family (M = 3.3, SD = 0.5.In line with H5a, the hierarchical regressions showed a small negative effect of valuing committed partnerships and family on support for the education plan.The more respondents considered it beneficial for society that people marry and have reliable, long-term relationships that produce children, the less they were in favor of addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.However, opposing H5b and H5c, agreement with the societal values of self-determination and tradition had no significant effects on attitudes. Step 3 of the hierarchical regression included attitudes toward sex education and toward lesbians and gays because these attitudes are theoretically closer to the dependent variable and might mediate some of the effects of the Step 1 and 2 predictors.Supporting H6a, the most important predictor of attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school was classical homophobia.Respondents who perceived homosexuality as something negative and who rejected equal rights for lesbian and gay people were the ones most critical of increasing acceptance of homosexual and bisexual people (e.g., by including them in school materials).Respondents who did not perceive sex education as the responsibility of the school were also more critical.Partly supporting H6b and H6c, more modern homophobia and less-positive affective attitudes toward lesbians and gays only increased opposition in the total sample.The product terms showed that the effects of all three attitudes toward lesbians and gays did not differ significantly depending on awareness of the education plans, β = −.04,t(913) = −1.02,p = .308for classical homophobia, β = .06,t (913) = 1.40, p = .162for modern homophobia, and β = −.02,t(913) = −0.81,p = .417for affective attitudes to lesbian and gay people.
Integrating these theoretically closer attitude predictors into the regression did not cancel out the effects of beliefs about the plans' aims and about children's wellbeing with same-sex parents.Whereas in Step 2 affirming the societal value of committed partnerships and family had a negative effect on attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school, in Step 3 this effect vanished, and instead affirming the societal value of tradition had a negative effect.Whereas age had no effect in Steps 1 and 2, in Step 3 it had a positive effect.Older people with similar attitudes toward sex education, lesbians, and gays were even more in favor of increasing acceptance of lesbians and gays in school than younger people.

Discussion
Even though population attitudes and laws relevant for LGB people have continuously improved in Germany over the past decades, the situation in schools is still characterized by invisibility, discrimination, and high vulnerability of LGB students.The present study showed that only one out of three respondents under 30 years of age recalled teachers mentioning lesbian, gay, or bisexual people at least once during their time in school.Only one out of two respondents were aware of openly LGB students, and only one out of four were aware of openly LGB teachers.Existing research demonstrates a high prevalence of homophobic swear words (Collier et al., 2013;Klocke, 2012) as well as increased victimization (Ioerger et al., 2015), depression, anxiety, and suicidality (Plöderl & Tremblay, 2015) of LGB adolescents.The situation can be improved by policies encouraging teachers to address sexual orientation diversity in school (McKibban & Anderson, 2021).As politicians and teachers are affected by population attitudes (O'Donoghue & Guerin, 2017), the present study's most important aim was to analyze whether and why people support or oppose addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school, especially to answer whether opposition is better predicted by beliefs or by societal values.
The results show that most German residents support addressing sexualorientation diversity in school and that beliefs are the more important predictor of this support.Opponents of sexual-orientation diversity less often believed that the plans' aim was to promote the acceptance of LGB and more often believed that the aim was to encourage students to engage in different sexual practices.Furthermore, they less often believed that children of samesex couples develop just as well as children of heterosexual couples and more often believed that sexual orientation is affected by socialization.That means, opponents of the education plan more often attributed a false aim to it and more often held false assumptions about sexual orientation and LGB people.There is much more evidence for biological determinants of sexual orientation than for socialization factors (Bailey et al., 2016).There is also evidence that children of same-sex couples develop just as well as children of heterosexual couples (Fedewa, Black, & Ahn, 2015;Miller, Kors, & Macfie, 2017).
Regarding value differences, opponents more often preferred a society where people get married, have children, and stay with their partner until the end of their life.Proponents of the education plans often focused on selfdetermination, in this case the individual right to live in accordance with one's own sexual orientation.A focus on self-determination might trigger the fear in people who value a committed partnership and family that addressing sexualorientation diversity in school will strengthen selfish motives at the cost of responsibility to the family.A supporter of the petition against the plan (Stängle, 2013) criticized that "important values like love and deep feelings" were not taught to children.This illustrates that a great number of people might have a married heterosexual couple with biological children in mind when thinking about such values, even though these "values of love and deep feelings" are not restricted to heterosexual couples.
Comparable to other research on contact and prejudice, personal contact with LGB people has an impact on attitudes toward addressing sexualorientation diversity in school.Having acquaintances who are openly LGB increases knowledge about sexual orientation (Klocke, 2012) and leads to more positive attitudes toward LGB people (Smith et al., 2009), which makes it more likely to empathize with LGB students in school who are almost exclusively confronted with heterosexuality, even in today's school system.Similarly, for education level and gender, the same effects as in former research on predictors of attitudes toward LGB people emerged (e.g., Herek & Gonzalez-Rivera, 2006;Kite & Whitley, 1996).Furthermore, respondents who immigrated to Germany or whose parents did were less in favor of addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school than respondents with no immigrant background.This is also comparable with earlier research in Germany (e.g., Zick et al., 2019).Interestingly, this effect did not emerge for respondents who had heard about the education plans before the survey.People with an immigrant background who were more involved in the issue of sexualorientation diversity in school did not differ from people without an immigrant background in their opinion on the topic.
Not surprisingly, attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school were predicted by general attitudes toward LGB people and toward sex education in general.Classical homophobia in particular was an important predictor, which was surprising because the issue of sexual-orientation diversity in school is rather new, whereas classical homophobia focuses on issues debated for decades such as whether homosexuality is a disease or whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.It could be assumed that modern homophobia (i.e., the dislike of being involved with homosexuality in everyday life) might have a greater impact than classical homophobia.However, people in Germany seemed to perceive the issue of addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school predominantly as an issue of equal rights and protection against discrimination (the opposite of classical homophobia).Furthermore, the attitude that multifaceted sex education (including reproduction, dangers, pleasant sides, as well as sexual orientations) is a responsibility of the school goes hand in hand with support for including sexual-orientation diversity outside clearly defined sex education lessons.
Whereas most predictors produced similar effects in the whole sample and in the subsample of respondents who had already heard about the education plans, some effects were different.On the one hand, the positive effects of personal contact to LGB people and education level were significantly stronger for respondents who were aware of the education plans.On the other hand, the negative effect of immigrant background and the positive effect of a nonheterosexual orientation were only present for respondents who had not been aware of the plans.Probably, when people hear about the plans in the media, some of them try to get information about its aims and content.Being more educated makes it easier to receive information from reputable media that are less likely to spread misinformation.Having LGB friends, family members, or acquaintances makes it easier to receive information from people personally affected by the plans and to feel empathy with LGB students experiencing discrimination in school.Reliable information and empathy lead to more positive attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.On the other hand, people who were unaware of the plans before being asked about them in a survey might quickly base their spontaneous judgment on own personal attributes like cultural background or sexual orientation.
Even though the effects of gender, the belief that people are homosexual because they were born this way, and the belief that LGB people are still discriminated were only significant in the whole sample, the effects did not significantly differ between groups.Thus, the non-significant effects in the subsample are likely be due to reduced statistical power.
The second aim of the current study was to describe German residents' attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school in more detail.A surprisingly clear majority of nine out of ten respondents of the whole sample was in favor of schools promoting the acceptance of LGB people to students.This is remarkable because opponents of the education plan sometimes argued that promoting the acceptance of LGB to students was "brainwashing" (Stuttgarter Zeitung, 2015).They preferred the term "tolerance" to clarify that everybody is free to reject what they called a homosexual "life style" (Niggemeier, 2014).Furthermore, 83% of the respondents were in favor of preventing homophobic swear words in schools.A majority was also in favor of addressing sexual-orientation diversity by inclusive school materials depicting LGB people; however, the approval was lower.About one out of three respondents agreed with or were ambiguous toward the assumption that addressing sexual diversity in school confuses children in the development of their sexuality.Probably, some people think that acceptance of LGB should just be taught when a suitable opportunity arises, e.g., a public coming-out of a classmate or a student using "gay" as a swear word, but not by discussing sexual orientation as part of the curriculum or presenting LGB people in everyday teaching material.

Limitations and future research
The data for this study were collected as part of a survey on population attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in Germany.Thus, the school-related questions were restricted to sexual-orientation diversity and the sample was restricted to Germany.It is likely that peoples' attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school are highly correlated with attitudes toward including a broader diversity of sex and gender in school (Worthen, 2012).Future studies should add questions on whether and how teachers talk about transgender, intersex or gender-nonconforming people and what respondents think about including these groups in the curricula.In a survey of a random sample of schools in Berlin, teachers reported that they addressed transgender and intersex people even less than LGB people (Klocke, Salden, & Watzlawik, 2020).Furthermore, the current results from Germany can be helpful to derive well-founded hypotheses on how to explain and change attitudes in other countries facing opposition to state policies of addressing sexual-orientation and gender diversity in school, such as the USA (Richardson, 2022), the UK (John, 2022), Ireland (O'Donoghue & Guerin, 2017), and Australia (O'Neill, 2022).Administrations might learn from these results and researchers might consider significant predictors of this study in their own research.
As the results come from a cross-sectional survey, it is not possible to draw causal inferences.The relation between the attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school and the beliefs about the aims of the education plans might also be explained by post hoc rationalization: People who feel repelled when they imagine teachers talking about gay issues in school legitimate their opposition by stating that the real aim of the education plan is to sexualize children and not to promote human rights.Thus, to identify the causes of attitudes more clearly, this crosssectional correlational research should be extended by longitudinal or experimental studies.
Beyond attitudes as dependent measure, a behavioral measure would provide additional insights.Attitudes that are never expressed in any behavior are of little practical relevance for reducing discrimination and improving the situation of LGBTI people.Respondents might therefore be asked if they have participated in demonstrations, signed petitions, argued with other people, or complained in school in favor of or against sexual-orientation diversity.This approach should be combined with a longitudinal design to predict future behavior by present beliefs, values, and attitudes.

Practical implications
The results of this study might help to reduce opposition to sexual-orientation diversity in school and to solve the conflict between opponents and supporters of the education plans.First of all, it is important to note that opposition to the plans should not be overestimated.Even though the petition against the education plan in Baden-Württemberg was signed by more than 200,000 people (Stängle, 2013), only one out of ten respondents in Germany rejected the goal to promote pupils' acceptance of LGB people.However, a few complaining parents, or the fear that these parents might exist, can deter teachers from talking openly about diverse sexual orientations, sexes, and genders (Sauntson & Simpson, 2011).Thus, it is important for activists, politicians, school administration, and teachers to know the reasons why people oppose this issue in school.
The present results suggest that opposition might be reduced by providing simple facts about how the education plans are to be implemented, i.e., what specific content will be talked about.At parent teacher meetings teachers could present the actual content of the curriculum and examples of books or media they will use.They should be careful when repeating false information on the education plans because this might strengthen belief in the false information (Lewandowsky, Ecker, Seifert, Schwarz, & Cook, 2012).Instead teachers might provide reasons why this information has been spread, e.g., that some people base their career on scandalizing gender issues (e.g., Kelle, 2020) or that media can increase their sales when they present a story in an emotional and scandalizing way.Additionally, scientific information on the wellbeing of children with same-sex parents might be presented to parents, as well as information that there is no evidence that sexual orientation can be influenced by the behavior of parents or teachers.
Compared to beliefs, societal values had only a small impact on attitudes about addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.However, this does not mean that they should be ignored.Often, LGBTI activists predominantly base their argumentation on the value of self-determination: People should be free to live in accordance with their own sexual orientation, sex, and gender, and this freedom should also be ensured by institutions as schools.The present results suggest that opponents of the education plan were also motivated by the value of committed partnerships and family.Opponents might feel threatened by the view of a society they perceive as simply focusing on individual freedom, e.g., the freedom to leave one's partner and family behind.Besides the effect of misinformation, there is also a value conflict.In order to bridge this gap, supporters of LGBTI rights might complement their value basis by more explicitly mentioning the values of community and social responsibility and by stressing that these values include responsibility to family and relatives.They might explain that enabling students to live in accordance with their sexual orientation also means fewer divorces due to a late and complicated coming-out of one spouse and a higher likelihood of LGBTI living in stable and caring relationships (Doyle & Molix, 2015).In doing so, they would address the fear mentioned in the comment at the beginning of this article and show that addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school does not contradict "important values such as love and deep feelings" but supports them.

Funding
The author acknowledges support by the Open Access Publication Fund of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.The survey was commissioned by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency of Germany.Descriptive results presented in this article were also published in the following research report: Küpper, B., Klocke, U., & Hoffmann, L.-C. (2017) "Schools should do something to prevent students from using terms such as 'fagot,' ´homo,' ´sissy,' or 'lesbian' as swear words." "Addressing sexual diversity in school confuses children in the development of their sexuality."(reversed) "When it comes to the topics of love and partnership, only heterosexual couples of men and women should appear in school."(reversed) e.g.books, films or assignments) should also include homosexual or bisexual people.

Table 1 .
Hierarchical regression of attitudes toward addressing sexual-orientation diversity in school.The table shows standardized β coefficients.B = belief, V = societal value, A = attitude.Only participants who had heard about the education plans of making sexual diversity an issue in schools were asked about the education plans' content.Thus, the effects of the beliefs of the education plans' content could only be analyzed in this subsample and are shown in separate columns.*p< .05,**p< .01,***p < .001 Hg. v. Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes [Attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in Germany.Results of a national representative survey.Edited by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency].Baden-Baden: Nomos.Ambivalent answers (e.g., "both") or neutral answers (e.g., "I do not care") were coded with 2.5.Items" . . .a colleague at work is gay."" . . .a colleague at work is lesbian" " . . .your son's teacher is gay."" . . .your daughter's teacher is lesbian."" . . .your son is gay."" . . .your daughter is lesbian."Sex Education Responsibility of School (M = 3.4,SD = 0.6) "Sex education is the task of the school.""The following topics should be dealt with in the context of sex education in schools:" "Reproduction.""Dangers that may be associated with the subject, e.g., communicable diseases or unwanted pregnancies.""The pleasant sides of sexuality.""Different sexual orientations, i.e., heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality.""School materials (e.g., books, films or assignments) should also include homosexual or bisexual persons.""It should be one of the school's goals to convey the acceptance of homosexual and bisexual persons to students." Sex Education Responsibility of Parents (M = 3.5, SD = 0.7) "Sex education is the task of parents."Addressing Sexual-Orientation Diversity in school (M = 3.2, SD = 0.7)