A cura di @S1m0n4 (modificato) e integrato da @divodivo.

Quali studi sono stati fatti sui genitori gay e i bambini cresciuti in tali nuclei familiari? Quali di questi sono pregiudizievoli?

Un articolo apparso su Them Before Us parla dei problemi metodologici riscontrabili nella letteratura che sostiene l’assenza di differenze tra i figli cresciuti da coppie omosessuali o eterosessuali, dalla selezione di un campione non sufficientemente aleatorio all’affidabilità delle dichiarazioni dei genitori.

Simply finding 20 children with same-sex parents using random methods would mean beginning with a huge pool of participants. Here’s a look at one study that did it- the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. It analyzed data based on one of the most exhaustive, and expensive, ongoing government survey research efforts to date. In the “fourth wave” of evaluating the same students over a period of two decades, 20 children with same-sex parents were identified- out of over 12,000. Here’s what they found.

The outcomes shown in the graph above reveals that “no difference” actually meant “huge difference”. Here are the official results which include one of the most surprising findings- that children who have married same-sex parents fare worse than those with unmarried same-sex parents.

The adolescents with same-sex parents experience significantly lower autonomy and higher anxiety, but also better school performance, than do adolescents with opposite-sex parents. Comparing unmarried to (self-described) married same-sex parents, above-average child depressive symptoms rises from 50% to 88%; daily fearfulness or crying rises from 5% to 32%; grade point average declines from 3.6 to 3.4; and child sex abuse by parent rises from zero to 38%. The longer a child has been with same-sex parents, the greater the harm.

Un articolo pubblicato sull’Atlantic discute gli errori metodologici commessi in studi analoghi a quelli citati da Them Before Us, presentando anche un più ampio discorso sulla rilevanza delle scienze sociali nel dibattito pubblico e le distorsioni a cui possono essere soggette questo tipo di ricerche:

This is not simply a matter of ideology; it’s a question of how social science is used to further ideological goals, and the unique power that has in the public sphere.