Prejudice Toward Gender and Sexual Diversity in a Brazilian Public University: Prevalence, Awareness, and the Effects of Education

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate how gender and sexual diversity prejudice (GenSex) expresses itself in a university, how prejudice varies in relation to socio-demographic characteristics, the effects of religious status, and how exposure to GenSex education affects levels of prejudice. Eight thousand one hundred eighty-four undergraduate students from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), in southern Brazil, completed the revised version of the Prejudice Against Sexual and Gender Diversity scale. Data reflect a concentration of ‘extreme’ and ‘high’ prejudice in students enrolled in Engineering, Agricultural Sciences, and the Exact and Geological Sciences. ‘Moderate’ and ‘low’ prejudice was over-represented in these disciplines as well as in Health, Applied Social Science, and Biological Sciences student samples. Conversely, those who have ‘very low’ or ‘minimal’ prejudice tended to cluster in Humanities and Linguistics and Arts. Most students were unaware of ongoing discrimination, reporting to have neither seen nor heard of discrimination towards LGBT students at the university. Time spent at the university had a negligible effect in prejudice mean reduction. Although a large effect was found for previous GenSex training, overall there was substantial variation across disciplines. We recommend raising student awareness of prejudice on campus, in addition to better GenSex education policy for all students, regardless of discipline.