Invetigation of school counselors'attitudes towards homosexuals and levels of homophobia

This study describes measures of homophobia and attitudes towards homosexual individuals among psychological counselors who works in Istanbul educational institutes. Also this study describes the attitudes of psychological counsellors toward lesbians and gay men. The behaviour of counsellors is analyzed based on their work amount as psychological counsellors at school and their familiarity level with the homosexual individual. This research was conducted by 304 (230 female and 74 male) psychological counsellors who worked in Istanbul educational institutes in 2016. The following methods are being used: "Personal Information Form", "The Index of Homophobia" (Hudson & Ricketts, 1980) ": reliability and validity study (Sakalli & Ugurlu, 2001), and "Attitudes toward lesbians and gays (LGYT) scale": reliability and validity study (Duyan & Gelbal, 2004). Overall, the results revealed a positive, statistically significant relationship between the counsellors' familiarity level with the homosexual individuals and their homophobia level, as well as their attitude towards the homosexual individuals. That is, as the familiarity level decreased, the homophobia level increased, and their overall attitude towards the homosexual individuals became more negative. Further, there was no significant correlation between the counsellors' work amount and their homophobia level, as well as their overall attitude towards the homosexual individuals. Anahtar Kelimeler: Lesbian, gay, homosexual, homophobia, attitudes, psychological counsellor