Krieglstein's Negative Attitudes Toward LGBT Students

Looking specifically at Illinois school social workers, Krieglstein (2003) measured heterosexism in connection with previous education, religion, and positive contacts with members of the LGBT community. The ATLG scale was administered to 409 workers who held an MSW degree. The sample consisted of 84% white, 77% female, and over 65% Christian (Krieglstein, 2003). 15% of the school social workers had scores indicating nonheterosexist attitudes, while 5% showed scores that indicated heterosexist attitudes. The amount of education on sexual orientation was found to have a negative correlation with the participants scores, showing that the more education they received, the lower their level of heterosexists attitudes appeared to be. 78% of the respondents stated that they had no previous or insufficient training with LGBT clients (Krieglstein, 2003). A positive correlation was found between religiosity and heterosexism, with 65% of the participants indicating a strong adherence to the Christian faith. The findings of (Crisp, 2012; Berkman & Zinberg, 1997) were similar to the findings of Krieglstein (2003), which showed that there is a negative correlation between the participant’s negative attitudes toward LGBT individuals and the amount of education they have received on the topic.

The ATLG, HATH, GAP, and IHP scales have been used in numerous studies and have demonstrated to fall within the range of excellence in reliability (Pedhazur & Schmelkin, 2001). Another strength that the reviewed studies have is they are a relatively large sample size. The majority of the studies sample size ranges from 150 – 300 participants, with the majority of the studies having a relatively high response