Chinese College Students’ Attitudes Toward Homosexuality: Exploring the Effects of Traditional Culture and Modernizing Factors Kai Lin 1 & Deeanna M. Button 2 & Mingyue Su 3 & Sishi Chen 4 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract Using survey data of 494 college students from two universities in China, this study explores the effects of tradi- tional culture (filial piety, parental attitudes toward homosex- uality, and attitudes toward sexuality) and social changes ac- companying modernization (intergroup contact and exposure to homosexuality in the media) on attitudes toward homosex- uality as well as gay and lesbian people in China. This study finds that Chinese college students generally hold accepting attitudes toward homosexuality, although the extent of toler- ance is limited, and is affected by various factors. Traditional cultural factors predict less tolerance for homosexuality and gay and lesbian people, whereas modernizing factors predict greater tolerance. Although both traditional and modernizing factors shape contemporary attitudes toward homosexuality in Chinese society, modernizing variables seem to have a greater impact. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed. Keywords Homosexuality . Gay and lesbian . China . Media exposure . Filial piety . Intergroup contact Introduction The past several years have marked many triumphs for the gay and lesbian rights movement. Indeed, between January 2012 and July 2015, ten countries, including the USA, began to legally recognize same-sex marriages (The New York Times 2015). However, formal responses to homosexuality as well as gay and lesbian people are not always positive across the world. The recent implementation of anti-homosexuality laws in multiple countries, including Russia, Uganda, and some parts of the USA, indicates that public attitudes toward homo- sexuality affect social policies on homosexuality and gay and lesbian rights. 1 As an international humanitarian effort, im- proving the global status of gay and lesbian rights requires improving attitudes toward homosexuality and the gay and lesbian population in each individual country. Compared to developing countries, industrialized Western countries gener- ally have more tolerant social policies toward homosexuality. Studies (e.g., Inglehart and Baker 2000; Inglehart 2006) have shown that people from higher-income countries generally hold more tolerant and liberal attitudes toward a host of social issues, including homosexuality (e.g., Adamczyk and Pitt 1 In February 2014, several US state legislatures proposed anti-gay seg- regation laws, allowing the refusal of service based on religious disap- proval of same-sex marriages (Sanchez & Marquez, 2014). In December 2013, Uganda parliament passed an anti-homosexuality law, later signed by the president, with punishments of up to life imprisonment (BBC News 2013); in June 2013, the Russian national parliament unanimously adopted, and President Vladimir Putin signed, a nationwide law banning the distribution of Bpropaganda of non-traditional sexual relations^ among minors (Rose 2013). * Kai Lin kailin@udel.edu Deeanna M. Button deeanna.button@stockton.edu 1 Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, 325 Smith Hall, Newark, DE 19716, USA 2 School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Criminal Justice Program, Stockton University, 101 Vera King Farris Drive, Galloway, NJ 08205, USA 3 College for Criminal Law Science, Beijing Normal University, No.19 Xin Jie Kou Wai Street, Beijing 100875, China 4 Party School of the CPC Xiamen Municipal Committee, Xiamen, China Sex Res Soc Policy DOI 10.1007/s13178-016-0223-3 Author's personal copy