Services on Demand
Journal
Article
Indicators
- Cited by SciELO
- Access statistics
Related links
- Similars in SciELO
Share
Psicologia
Print version ISSN 0874-2049
Abstract
COSTA, Pedro Alexandre; PEREIRA, Henrique and LEAL, Isabel Pereira. Same‑sex Parenting: State of the art and search for normalization. Psicologia [online]. 2012, vol.26, n.1, pp.55-69. ISSN 0874-2049.
Parenting skills of lesbian women and gay men have been challenged based on a number of arguments that are based on the assumption that sexual orientation is an indicator of lesser parental capacity. Nevertheless, this legal, political, and social argument, does not seem to echo in the scientific community. The amount of studies dedicated to homosexual parenting have grown exponentially and consistently revealed that parents’ sexual orientation does not negatively influence child development. Through a theoretical review of studies, it is intended to place the state of research on parenting by homosexuals taking a critical view of the main research paradigms and how these influence the conclusions drawn from the studies. It is concluded that the inexistence of differences between homosexual and heterosexual families is misleading, and that efforts of normalization and minimization of differences undermines the scientific knowledge about these families.
Keywords : Parenting; gay fathers; lesbian mothers; child development.