Curbing Binge Drinking - Single Sex Dorms as part of the answer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A study by Brigham Young University in 2009, published in The Journal of American College Health, found a connection between coed dorms and binge drinking. The study surveyed 510 students at five universities and found that those in coed dorms were 2½ times more likely to engage in binge drinking than those in same-sex dorms.

Casual drinking also follows the same trend. In coed dorms, 56 percent said they drank some alcohol weekly, compared with 27 percent in same-gender dorms.

The study also found the results weren’t indicative of self-selection. In other words, the partyers weren’t asking to live in coed dorms. In most cases, universities simply assigned students where to live.

The study’s results were not unique. As John Garvey, the president of The Catholic University of America, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2011, several studies point to binge drinking rates being twice as high in coed dorms as in single-sex housing


Read more at http://national.deseretnews.com/article/3433/Hard-liquor-ban-is-good-start-but-public-schools-also-need-return-to-single-sex-dorms.html#vfyVG6sOhhOfH4F5.99

I read that. What I meant was more like: why did they even think of doing that study? Where's the logical connection? Why would people in single sex dorms be less likely to binge drink?

Do you really not remember what it was like to be 18, away from home for the first time and WOWEE in COLLEGE???

This (co-ed) environment largely creates different expectations," Carroll continued. "What does it mean as you head down the hallway to the showers, that there's going to be mixed gender? What does that mean when there's that kind of proximity and association?"

[Anonymous]

College students drink because they see most adults drink when they socialize. Humans worship alcohol and it causes many problems.

[Anonymous]

How about just enforcing the law. 3/4 of the undergrads can not legally drink.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lived in a single sex dorm my freshman year of college. Certainly did not curb the binge drinking.

I was just going to say this. We ladies partied up a storm in our all-female dorm. Then we'd go out and party some more with the guys. Single-sex dorms have nothing to do with the drinking problem on campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lived in a single sex dorm my freshman year of college. Certainly did not curb the binge drinking.

+1

I actually had never had a drink before arriving at my all-women's dorm freshman year. Suffice if to say that I quickly made up for lost time.

[Anonymous]

One of the reasons that people drink is that they don't have healthy ways to meet someone that they want to to hook up with and/or date. They are shy or its just awkward going up to that good-looking dude when you are cold-stone sober. Liquor gives them that "liquid courage" to do so. So, how do we solve that problem? Maybe borrow from eastern cutures and have arranged marriages and that way the pressure's off? "Hey: Want to go out and pick up guys? No, I'm good, my parents have me set up to marry someone already. I'm going to the library."

[Anonymous]

I lived in a single sex male dorm freshman year and man there was some wicked binge drinking in the hallways even. Girls may have had a civilizing effect. Especially with all the vomiting and swearing and acts of foolishness. All while cranking back in black cd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College students drink because they see most adults drink when they socialize. Humans worship alcohol and it causes many problems.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This (co-ed) environment largely creates different expectations," Carroll continued. "What does it mean as you head down the hallway to the showers, that there's going to be mixed gender? What does that mean when there's that kind of proximity and association?"

It means college will be like my house, where I shared a bathroom with my sister and my brothers?

The belief that single-sex dorms will lead to less alcohol consumption seems to arise from a belief that men and women are so vastly different from each other that they can't possibly treat each other as human beings doing the things humans do.

I suspect a lot of the people who choose single sex dorms have extremely conservative ideas about gender, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were similarly conservative in their use of chemical mood enhancers. OTOH, there are plenty of frat boys and sorority girls who have traditional views of gender roles who drink plenty.

[Anonymous]

Notre Dame has all single-sex dorms AND a big drinking culture as well.

I would not link single-sex dorms to less alcoholic drinking.

Signed,
ND grad

[Anonymous]

I find this article suspect, frankly. However, even if the statistic is true it may not mean what you think. In most college campuses, the majority of students choose co-ed dorms. Those who purposely pick single sex housing are likely a self-selected group of kids who are more conservative behaviorally and, I'd wager, less likely to binge drink no matter where they live. If all dorms were single sex this would eliminate this phenomenon, and I'd expect to see the same overall percentage of binge drinking seen in the general college population.

Correlation doesn't equal causation.

[Anonymous]

If I were to study binge drinking in college, Brigham Young would be about the last university that I would think is representational of university at large. I'm not sure any study that only includes information from there extrapolates to university life as a whole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Notre Dame has all single-sex dorms AND a big drinking culture as well.

I would not link single-sex dorms to less alcoholic drinking.

Signed,
ND grad

I totally agree. However, parietals did make it easier to get out of a messy situation with the opposite sex if you needed it.

Signed,
Fellow ND grad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Notre Dame has all single-sex dorms AND a big drinking culture as well.

I would not link single-sex dorms to less alcoholic drinking.

Signed,
ND grad

I totally agree. However, parietals did make it easier to get out of a messy situation with the opposite sex if you needed it.

Signed,
Fellow ND grad

Parietals! Ha! No one ever even knows what this word means when I use it! Funny!

[Anonymous]

I would love to see a copy of the actual study. I fished around a bit and could not find one (I was not willing to subcribe to the referenced journal). If anyone has a (legal) link that would be great.

As others posted -- I suspect that the end result is based more on the types of folks who elect housing in single sex dorms, but I did read the study authors felt that the statistics were not driven by that factor.

The article references 509 study participants from 5 college campuses, and indicates that the study authors gathered quite a bit of information the participates, but again you would need to review the math to determine if the numbers were statistically significant. How were the study participants solicited and selected? How many came from each school and from each type of housing within that school? What is the housing assignment situation at each school? etc. etc. . . One question for me -- off the top -- is the number of kids surveyed in each housing situation. I believe I read where the authors of the study felt that single-sex dorms accounted for only about 10 percent of college dorm capacity. They also felt that students preferred coed dorms and that assignments to single-sex dorms were more or less random. That would not be my expectation. I would anticipate that while kids may prefer coed dorms, those kids who actively chose to live in a single sex dorm will be given preference and that any excess capacity in a single-sex dorm might be filled in with kids who preferred a coed dorm.

The bottom line is that you need to know the details to determine if you believe the study should guide your decisions.