Literature Review Blog #3

Wechsler, Henry, and Bernice Wuethrich. Dying to Drink: Confronting Binge Drinking on College Campuses. [Emmaus, Pa.]: Rodale, 2002. Print.

Dying to Drink talks about alcohol on campus and how binge drinking is a sort of culture with college students.  It talks about how drinking on campus is taking a bigger toll than most people realize.  Alcohol has many different forms of negative consequences but there is also a section on what students and parents and communities can do to help solve this problem.

Henry Wechsler is a lecturer at Harvard University with a Ph. D. and was the principal investigator of the College Alcohol Study.  He has also conducted several national surveys of college and university students across the United States and published extensively on the subject.  Bernice Wuethrich is the Vice president for Global Health and Science.  She works intermittently as a freelance science writer, having contributed to Science, New Scientist, Discover, and others.

Hazing-doing any act, or causing any situation that recklessly or intentionally subjects a student to the risk of serious bodily injury for the purpose of initiation into a student organization, school, college, or university.

School Rituals-Many universities host or at least tolerate high-risk rituals or events that are commonly known to involve heavy drinking. These activities are usually student initiated and run, but they are so closely associated with the school’s identity that administrators are often loathe to interfere.  These rituals can result in physical and emotional injury or even death.

“Participation in fraternity initiations and events heightens the risk of excessive drinking.”  (page 35)  This shows how binge drinking can be related to other aspects of the campus like fraternities and rituals.

“The fraternity drinking culture is so entrenched that only the united will and action of university administrators, students, parents, alumni, and fraternities themselves will change it.” (page 52)  This shows how deep drinking and fraternities are involved in universities and how large of an effort it would take to change.

“While most attempts to curb heavy drinking thus far have focused on changing the attitudes of individual students or on pointing out alcohol’s harms, far less attention has been paid to changing the environment that promotes, facilitates, and perpetuates heavy drinking.” (page 90-91)  This brings up a good point about how to go about curbing the amount of binge drinking that goes on on a college campus.  It makes sense that to change the attitudes of students you have to target the things that influence them on a daily basis.

This source has a lot of data that was collected from many universities around the United States.  This gives examples from many different sources and different perspectives on how binge drinking affects college campuses and even suggestions on how to change it.  It touches a lot on cultural and social aspects of binge drinking especially with the association with fraternities.

Literature Review Blog #2

Goodale, Thomas G. Alcohol and the College Student. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986. Print.

This book discusses what history has taught us about alcohol and how higher education has neglected this problem for years.  Alcohol abuse has been recognized as a leading social and health threat to students and in response, colleges have developed a variety of programs and policies to help reduce the incidence of alcohol-related problems on campus.  Two students give their perspective on campus alcohol policies and programs.

Thomas G. Goodale is vice chancellor for student affairs and professor of education at the University of Denver.  He has served as a consultant to various colleges and universities on the issue of use and abuse of alcohol.

Components of Model Alcohol Programs- Alcohol awareness activities, alcohol information and resource center, alcohol and health promotion workshops, academic courses, an advisory committee, counseling and referral, training and supervision, and research and evaluation.  This model alcohol program is Goodale’s idea of a good alcohol education program that universities should utilize to prevent alcohol related incidents with students.

Alcohol abuse problems on campus are not limited to alcoholism but include a wide range of negative consequences such as driving after excessive drinking, missing classes because of hangovers, nausea and vomiting, fighting and vandalism.

“College is the place where many students learn to drink and where those who began earlier developed the patterns to which they will adhere for years.” (page 10) This quote says how college is a place where many kids start drinking and kids that have already been drinking continue patterns they have started and will continue for years.

“Drinking is an extremely important part of the college experience. It is the facilitator that accompanies every meaningful social event and is the sign of a person’s well adjusted sociability.” (page 11) This quote emphasizes the importance of drinking as a social behavior and how it is linked to most important social events.

“In the past, most campus alcohol abuse prevention programs have focused exclusively on the individual student; recently, colleges have begun to examine their alcohol policies and many have revised them to be more consistent with the alcohol education messages that have been directed to students over the years.” (page 29) This shows how universities can’t ignore the presence of alcohol on campus and are trying to better integrate their policies to to get through to students.

This material provides a lot of facts and field research that will be useful to understand and support my arguments.  Goodale also goes into depth with the policies of universities and how they should be changed or structed to better suite the presence of alcohol on campus.

Literature Review Blog #1

Vander Ven, Thomas. Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party so Hard. New York: New York UP, 2011. Print.

The reading is about how college kids use each other as support and encouragement to drink and continue drinking even after nights of embarrassing or destructive behavior.  The book contains many different student accounts on drinking experiences and it gives a very good insight into what the motives are behind kids drinking so much.  Vander Ven argues that drinking in college is a social scene and explains how through examples.

Thomas Vander Ven, Ph. D., is an associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Ohio University.  His studies include sociology of alcohol and social problems.  

Binge drinking-defined for men as the consumption of five or more alcoholic drinks in a row at least once in the prior two weeks, and for women as the consumption of four or more drinks in a row at least once in the prior two weeks.

Social norm-college students generally believe that their peers regularly consume more alcohol than they do.  This belief that drinking large quantities of alcohol is normative may influence students to try to match that level of consumption because “that’s what everyone does in college.”

“College students who binge drink are more likely to do poorly in school, miss class, vandalize property, get into fights and get injured, and get sexually victimized than their non-binging counterparts.” (page 4)  This quote is a good general statement of the consequences of binge drinking that can be more thoroughly explored.

“Beer is beautiful. As a shy person by nature, I forget all about it. I can talk to beautiful women much easier. It is liquid courage most definitely.” (page 55)  This quote is an example of what a nineteen-year-old male said and it gives a good look into why college kids want to drink.

“In drunkworld, people fall down, slur their words, break things, laugh uncontrollably, act crazy, flirt, hook up, get sick, pass out, fight, dance, sing, and get overly emotional.”  This image of “drunkworld” is a look at how kids see the world when they’re drunk and some of the experiences that happen to them.

This source is a great way to explore my research question by looking at many different examples.  There is a plethora of different student accounts for almost every imaginable situation involving binge drinking.  It is a great way to try and understand the motives for getting so drunk by seeing things through students eyes and seeing how they think.

Bibliography

Bibliography:
Chao, Tiffany, Dr. "Binge Drinking College Students Report Being Happier." ABC News. ABC News Network, 20 Aug. 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.
LaBrie, Joseph W., Justin F. Hummer, Eric R. Pedersen, Andrew Lac, and Taona Chithambo. "Measuring College Students' Motives behind Prepartying Drinking: Development and Validation of the Prepartying Motivations Inventory." ScienceDirect.com. Elsivier, 1 Aug. 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.
Marczinski, Cecile A., Estee C. Grant, and Vincent J. Grant. Binge Drinking in Adolescents and College Students. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science, 2009. Print.
Vander, Ven Thomas. Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party so Hard. New York: New York UP, 2011. Print.
Wechsler, Henry, and Bernice Wuethrich. Dying to Drink: Confronting Binge Drinking on College Campuses. [Emmaus, Pa.]: Rodale, 2002. Print.
Woodyard, Catherine D., Jeffrey S. Hallam, and John P. Bently. "Drinking Norms: Predictors of Misperceptions among College Students." ResearchGate. American Journal of Health Behavior, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.

Research Proposal

James Reyes
Professor Goeller
Research in Disciplines: College!
February 26, 2013
Research Proposal

Working Title:  College Kids “Getting Wasted”

Topic:
        I will be exploring why such a high percentage of college students are involved in binge drinking.  I will focus on more of a social/cultural link toward reasons why college students drink so frequently.  Many studies have shown that kids who drink in college are generally happier than kids that don’t, but is this a good thing or a bad thing and how does the universities policy towards alcohol affect binge drinking?

Research Question:
        Why do such a high percentage of college students partake in binge drinking when there are many obvious negative side effects and how does the leniency of universities almost encourage binge drinking especially in underage students?

Theoretical Frame:
        I am trying to understand why so many college kids binge drink every weekend when there are so many negative effects of it.  Not only is it illegal for half of college students but also it is in most cases detrimental to academics as well as finances.  Binge drinking tends to be a particularly expensive activity to partake in so often especially when many college kids don’t have jobs or steady sources of income.  Academically, binge drinking can have a very negative side effect by causing students to range from not handing in assignments on time to even failing out of classes.  Even though binge drinking can be so detrimental to students, I believe the reason that they do it is to fit in socially or culturally.  Students who drink together are reported to be happier and are able to more easily make friends and connections.  The students that don’t drink are seen as outcasts and are usually reported to be less happy than students who do drink.  The tendency for universities to turn a blind eye when it comes to drinking and how easy it is to obtain alcohol make it a tempting activity for most college students.

Research and Plan:
        One case study that I am going to look at is Measuring college students' motives behind prepartying drinking: Development and validation of the prepartying motivations inventory, which looks at the motives behind preparty drinking which can also help to get a good idea of why college students drink in the first place.  The study surveyed thousands of students from two different universities and obtained the criteria for motives by asking open-ended questions.  The four main categories of motives for drinking were determined to be social, coping, conformity and enhancement.  This study on motives for preparty drinking can help to understand the motives for binge drinking.
        Some other questions that are relevant to my topic are: Why do universities tend to turn a blind eye when it comes to binge drinking on campus and does it actually benefit the university in any way?  How does binge drinking affect the financial situation of college students?  Does binge drinking have other negative effects such as facilitating criminal behavior?  How can the worst effects of binge drinking be prevented on college campuses?

Bibliography:
Chao, Tiffany, Dr. "Binge Drinking College Students Report Being Happier." ABC News. ABC News  
Network, 20 Aug. 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.
LaBrie, Joseph W., Justin F. Hummer, Eric R. Pedersen, Andrew Lac, and Taona Chithambo. "Measuring College Students' Motives behind Prepartying Drinking: Development and Validation of the Prepartying Motivations Inventory." ScienceDirect.com. Elsivier, 1 Aug. 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.
Marczinski, Cecile A., Estee C. Grant, and Vincent J. Grant. Binge Drinking in Adolescents and College Students. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science, 2009. Print.
Vander, Ven Thomas. Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party so Hard. New York: New York UP, 2011. Print.
Wechsler, Henry, and Bernice Wuethrich. Dying to Drink: Confronting Binge Drinking on College Campuses. [Emmaus, Pa.]: Rodale, 2002. Print.
Woodyard, Catherine D., Jeffrey S. Hallam, and John P. Bently. "Drinking Norms: Predictors of Misperceptions among College Students." ResearchGate. American Journal of Health Behavior, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.

Privatization and College Binge Drinking

There is a link between college drinking and privatization of colleges, although it may not be obvious.  Schools that have turned to privatization generally also concern themselves more with making money and getting students to apply to their schools than they do for the quality of the education at the school.

Binge drinking in college usually leads to students doing worse academically.  Students are out late at night drinking and don't have time to complete their academic assignments.  This leads to handing in assignments late and even failing and dropping out of classes.  

Unfortunately, these private colleges aren't as concerned as they should be with students failing course or even dropping out altogether as long as they are still getting their money.  This leads to less regulation of college drinking and less focus on improving the actual learning environment for students.  

Privatization clearly isn't the sole cause of binge drinking in college because I believe the bigger reason behind binge drinking is a social/cultural aspect, but privatization certainly isn't helping the situation.

Scouting the Territory

My topic hasn't changed since my last post, I'm still going to focus on why college kids binge drink even though it can be so detrimental for many reasons and I'm going to discuss what those reasons are.  I was able to find a lot of easily available statistics about drinking by just doing a Google search.  Also, I found an article that argued that college kids that binge drink are happier than students that don't.  There are also multiple books written on this subject, some by Professors with first hand knowledge.  By searching on Amazon I was able to find some of these books with reviews and some useful information.

Google:
http://youngadults.about.com/od/healthandsafety/a/Alcohol.htm
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/08/20/binge-drinking-college-students-report-being-happier/

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/College-Drinking-Reframing-Social-Problem/dp/0275999815/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1360990021&sr=8-2&keywords=drinking+in+college
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/17/139713669/explaining-why-students-love-getting-wasted

A main reason for drinking that I've picked up on is for it's social aspect.  Many kids drink because they feel it's necessary to fit in.  It's a way of being accepted by everyone in college.