Reprezentarea socială a homosexualităţii în rândul studenţilor români: o abordare structurală

No social issue has attracted as much attention as homosexuality did. In Romania, scientific research on attitudes towards gay men and lesbian women is still poor.This paper summarizes the main findings of an exploratory study that aimed to determine the social representation of homosexuality among 375 Romanian university students. The participants completed a standardized task based on free association technique. The responses were analyzed lexically and semantically to differentiate the associations from a qualitative perspective. The structural approach was based on prototypical analysis.The results highlighted four dimensions of the social representation Romanian students have about homosexuality: a) a common representation (e.g., a different sexual orientation, boys/men, attraction between two persons of the same sex); b) a dimension related to desirable values of human existence (e.g., love); c) a pathological dimension (e.g., mental illness, abnormality/deviation); d) a religious dimension (e.g.,sin).