The recent and developing story of "Rutgers sorority hazing arrests" is worth following closely and collecting a scrap-book on. It could easily serve as your "case" in your paper.
I think hazing itself would make a good topic. It's especially interesting -- and Moffatt documents this in his book and also in The Rutgers Picture Book -- that hazing was once supported by the Deans as a way of breaking in freshmen. It's interesting how a general college practice became a specifically fraternity practice over time.
You have to wonder why fraternities persist in hazing pledges. There are obviously advantages to it for them -- most notably by testing pledges to see if they are willing to do anything to belong, then getting them to feel belonging through a sort of "Stockholm Syndrome." It obviously has a very powerful effect on some people.
I think you can find out about specific cases of pledging, but it would be difficult to find out about the general trends since most pledges are sworn to secrecy and rarely tell. There are now many cases, however, where stories have leaked out through arrests (like the recent ones at Rutgers) or accidents (posting of videos) or memoirs or other means. So you should be able to find some material. The book on Fraternity Gang Rape sounds like an interesting anthropological analysis of fraternity rituals with details on some of the most extreme practices.
The recent and developing story of "Rutgers sorority hazing arrests" is worth following closely and collecting a scrap-book on. It could easily serve as your "case" in your paper.
ReplyDeleteI think hazing itself would make a good topic. It's especially interesting -- and Moffatt documents this in his book and also in The Rutgers Picture Book -- that hazing was once supported by the Deans as a way of breaking in freshmen. It's interesting how a general college practice became a specifically fraternity practice over time.
You have to wonder why fraternities persist in hazing pledges. There are obviously advantages to it for them -- most notably by testing pledges to see if they are willing to do anything to belong, then getting them to feel belonging through a sort of "Stockholm Syndrome." It obviously has a very powerful effect on some people.
I think you can find out about specific cases of pledging, but it would be difficult to find out about the general trends since most pledges are sworn to secrecy and rarely tell. There are now many cases, however, where stories have leaked out through arrests (like the recent ones at Rutgers) or accidents (posting of videos) or memoirs or other means. So you should be able to find some material. The book on Fraternity Gang Rape sounds like an interesting anthropological analysis of fraternity rituals with details on some of the most extreme practices.
As for statistics, I find Lexis Nexis Statistical very useful.
You should track down the article by Leo Reisberg in the Chronicle of Higher Education on "Fraternities in Decline."