Sources of Stability and Changes of Attitudes Towards Cis/Heteronormativity Among College Students

Abstract

This project examines how community of origin and campus communities may influence students’ to have higher or lower levels of viewing cisgender and heterosexuality as “normal”; we investigate cisheteronormativity. We employ ideas Differential Association Theory and Ideological Learning Theory to examine this process in terms of shifting norms and judgments of deviance. A survey of UWEC students was conducted in the fall of 2024, asking about life in community of origin and on campus, and the resulting data was analyzed using multiple linear regression. Results show that 1) those who consider home town friends closer than UWEC friends are more likely to hold the belief that gender expressions are linked to sexuality, 2) Those who claim a cisheterosexual identity are less likely than others to see gender non-conforming people as able to be good role models, and 3) those with cisheterosexual identities from smaller communities of origin are more likely to expect problems if they invite a gender non-conforming friend to a cookout at home compared to on campus, and so a gap in normative expectations and reactions between the two places is greater for some. Given these results we suggest ways that campus climate may be improved.