Swiss schools struggle with homophobic language and bullying
An academic survey has found that homophobia remains rife in Swiss classrooms, the NZZ am Sonntag reported on Sunday.
One in four high school students admit to uttering anti-gay slurs or engaging in violence against a presumed homosexual classmate in the past year. The derogatory term “faggot” is used by four in five teens although not necessarily in a targeted fashion. These are the findings of a doctoral thesis that polled 151 secondary schools in German-speaking Switzerland.
The more religiously inclined adolescents are, the more likely they are to engage in homophobic behavior, according to the research. Boys tend to be more aggressive than girls.
In 2018, Switzerland made homophobia a criminal offence. Two years later, the Swiss population voted, with 63.1% in favour, to extend the country’s hate speech law to cover sexual orientation. That rendered incitement to hatred on account of sexual orientation a criminal offence.
Same-sex marriage will be legal in the Alpine nation as of July 1.
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