Raising Children to Be (In-)Tolerant: Influence of Church, Education, and Society on Adolescents' Stance towards Queer People in Germany

Abstract

There recently was a highly emotional debate in Germany regarding what to teach children about sexual plurality; different actors accuse each other of wrongful indoctrination. This paper presents a computational model based on the results of the SINUS youth study 2016 indicating that the dynamics of adolescents finding their own stance towards sexual plurality are resilient towards external pressure by clerical or government activities. Instead, civil society plays a strong role in the process of children developing their own opinions. This underlines that values in society can be reproduced between generations.